Sure Why Not

Maybe Palantir AI is handling the logistics bookings.

Sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology was unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong this summer, sparking an inquiry on Capitol Hill and raising the possibility that China could have access to key components of the highly classified weapon system.

A shipment of F-35 parts bound for the United States for repairs was rerouted as it transited the Pacific Ocean from Australia, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Pentagon confirmed the disappearance of some components.

I'm just a city blogger, but given that the US military has plenty of ways to transport things, and Lockheed Martin has access to a plane or two, handing off top secret stuff to "commercial shipper" seems to be an interesting choice!

F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin manages the program’s overall supply chain and uses commercial shipping providers to transport parts.

Lockheed said in a statement it couldn’t discuss the status of shipments for security reasons but follows all U.S. regulations for shipping aircraft components.

"Our teams handle every shipment with the utmost diligence and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the F-35 program and the security of our allied partners,” it said.

Computer Say Kill

A maddening thing is that of course spicy autocorrect doesn't actually know the right answers to things, but you were a "luddite" if you pointed out this obvious, unquestionable, fact.

"Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School" 

...

Inside Centcom, which conducted the US attack, some personnel relied too much on the artificial intelligence embedded in Maven Smart System, the officials said. Maven, which is made by Palantir Technologies Inc., allows users to view and coordinate complex military operations — from targeting to command and control — using AI-enabled software that fuses more than 150 different data inputs into a coherent set of information to inform commanders’ decisions.

In the past year, the Defense Department has rapidly made Maven a cornerstone of the US military apparatus. Several former senior US military officials now work for Palantir, including some with high-level security clearances in Centcom’s Tampa headquarters. Their role is to keep the software functioning inside secure military environments.

Some Centcom personnel expected Maven to flag stale information or inconsistencies in the underlying intelligence assembled for potential targets, the officials said. It’s not clear why they had such expectations.

People in charge love it, in part, because for some reason we've accepted that you can say the computer is responsible, instead of the dumb fucks using the computer or the people who made the computer! No other product works this way!

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

...the weekend.

A Mission For Troop Respecter Tapper

If you don't count them, they aren't dead. 

More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the Defense Department’s internal casualty accounting data.

Five of the officials said there have been at least 22 military fatalities — four more than what appears in the Pentagon’s public database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS.

The Bullshit Machine Did Some Bullshit

This is probably how AI destroys humanity.

The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.

The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.

It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.

The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.” But it also “almost started a war,” the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.

Likely this how they are choosing to kill people on "drug boats." (It would be dumbasses destroying humanity, of course, not the chatbots)

Failure To Catapult The Propaganda

I think it is the first visible "war" that I remember which wasn't accompanied by unified media screeching at anyone who dared to object to it. Ari Fleischer would've made sure all good patriots supported this.

Nearly seven months into the war with Iran, a new Fox News national survey finds views souring as voters feel the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the war, a growing number think the conflict will make the U.S. less safe and a majority believes the decision to take military action was wrong.

Seven in 10 voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the conflict, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents and 43% of Republicans.

Speaking Of Burning It All Down

Who knows if this is just more bluster, but you know he keeps asking about the big red button.

President Trump told Axios Thursday that he's approaching a critical juncture in the Iran war over whether to restart massive attacks in an effort to bring the conflict to a close.

"I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It's a big decision. Anything could happen with me."

Loopholes For The Lesser People

This is very funny. You can (do not take my legal advice) get around the Medicaid work requirements by gambling. And you just need to show $580 gross (not net!) winnings every 6 months, which you can get by taking both sides of a bet (minus the inevitable house cut).

Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements. I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.

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— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 11:52 PM

He'll Burn It All Down

Trump is an ageing malignant narcissist who cannot fathom the world going on without him. His monuments and desire to put his name on everything are the harmless manifestations of that. His desire to knock down the Kennedy Center could extend to everything.

Cheery Friday thoughts!

Morning

Fatal Friday.

Happy Hour

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Bret's Friends In New York

Well ok then.

Bret: Millions of Americans, including me, not only hate the parties but also hate the party for which we typically vote. That means there’s a market of the dissatisfied. I hear this all the time among my friends in New York City: They can’t believe they’re stuck with Zohran Mamdani as mayor, and they felt the same way about Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio before him. But when you ask them if they voted in the primaries, the usual answer is: Uh, no — we were on the Vineyard or in Greece. The point is that it’s on them, or us, and the remedy is some civic entrepreneurship, philanthropically funded, to change this.

Shorter Bret: my friends are unrepresntative and too lazy to be in charge, but nonetheless they of course should in charge.

Shithole State

When I am president, I will also travel the country telling people that they live in disgusting hellholes.

But Trump said North Carolina was one of the worst. “Nobody use to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state,” Trump said. “It was like North Carolina, it was beautiful, it was apple pie. Right? And now it’s the worst in the whole nation, and it all started with Cooper and you have a lousy governor right now too.”

And he contradicted what his attorney general, Todd Blanche, said before he took the stage.

“North Carolina is ground zero for exactly what is working,” Blanche said. “Communities are safer, families are stronger, and side by side with your local county sheriffs, police officers and state partners, people are able to go to bed at night and feel safer than they did just two years ago.”

Good Democrats

Sometimes the centrist-coded ones surprise.

With no news release and little ceremony, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration has killed an anti-transgender regulatory effort launched during the waning months of former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term.

The proposal would have used the Virginia Board of Health to bar transgender women and girls from women’s-only athletic teams and competitions, bathrooms, locker rooms, and other spaces where people may be undressed. The state’s regulatory docket records the outcome in bureaucratic language: “Withdrawn.” The action was terminated July 30, after its public comment period had ended and 321 comments had been submitted. No preliminary regulation was ever drafted.

 

Innovations In Economics

Forget the Peace Prize, the man deserves the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Trump: "If we lose $50 billion a year with a country, and we say 'we're not going to trade with you anymore,' we don't lose $50 billion a year. It's very simple. Right?"

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 17, 2026 at 12:03 AM

I agree with you, Mr. Trump, just stop trade! It's very simple! 

To be fair, this isn't any nuttier than "expansionary austerity" and plenty of other nutty economics ideas which are accepted as unquestionable fact.

Snorts and Giggles Until Real Americans Take It Seriously

Not that long ago, skepticism about AI, opposition to data centers, and concerns about the Flock surveillance system were dismissed as absurd lefty (ONLINE LEFTY, even WORSE) issues, equivalent with being concerned about 5G cell towers.

The people hanging on out Elon's Nazi CSAM site were convinced these were BLUESKY issues, which is their code for "too stupid to even consider."

Now that they are heartland (real American) issues, suddenly they are real, though the centrist discourse factory is so corrupted with tech money that they are slow to catch up.

What do you think Abundance is/was? Just the "left" conduit for tech VC money/influence.

Speaking of 5G cell towers, never forget this Naomi Wolf banger.

Monuments To The Trump Presidency

I'm not going to say it will be good if, as seems likely, Trump turns the Kennedy Center into a giant crater, but it would be a fitting monument to the era.

I'm placing my bets on them trashing the place inside so that it will have to be demolished, leaving that task to someone else.

Future administrations could arrest everyone involved, of course.

Could.

People don't need to fear actual prison. They need to fear a Justice Department dedicated to making them suffer and draining their savings for attorney fees.

I don't think anyone fears that.

They should.

Also, the bulldozers should travel the inauguration parade route to the Supreme Court building in 2029.

Morning

Lower those rates, Mr. Warsh!

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