Sure Why Not

Or, more appropriately, what for?

The National Space Transportation Policy directs the Secretary of War, NASA, and other agencies to identify federal land for an additional reentry site within 90 days, part of a push to support more than 1,000 launches and reentries annually by 2030.

The policy also calls for priority airspace corridors, transparent range scheduling, and a "commercial-first" approach to national space transportation needs.

It directs NASA to facilitate commercial transportation to the Moon and robotic access to Mars, building on a separate executive order Trump signed in December outlining plans to return "Americans to the Moon by 2028 through the Artemis Program."

Elon and SpaceX are involved with Artemis - critical roles though not all of them - so good luck with that!

Blue Origin’s demonstration lander represents a number of the capabilities that will be featured in their Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, which will be used for crewed landings on the Moon’s south pole. The test lander doesn’t include the BE-7 engine of the Blue Moon Mark 2, but it does include a life support system and crew habitation area, which will allow the crew to live and work onboard while it’s docked with the Orion spacecraft.

After the two separate, SpaceX will launch its Starship Version 3 rocket, with a docking adapter on the nose of the upper stage. That Starship will be the target for Orion to dock, but because it won’t have a crew habitation area, the astronauts will remain onboard Orion while the two are mated.

“Now with respect to SpaceX, I think you’re what you’re witnessing, you’re seeing an increase in launch cadence, and that’s critical. If they’re able to launch again in early September after their last launch and continue to track inside the month, potentially every couple of weeks before the end of the year, that’s going to — we’re going to feel very good about their time to contribute to Artemis 3 next year,” Isaacman said.

SpaceX is so gonna be ready I promise I mean they're increasing cadence which is really critical and of course they're gonna be ready no lies no worries did I mention we're gonna feel very good if they do this thing which they're gonna do no really they're gonna do it. 

At Least The War Is Over

I am curious if they really have any new and exciting sanctions for Iran, a country not a stranger to such things, or if this is just mostly bluster to hide surrender.

As a result, experts say, Mr. Trump is stuck in a conflict with limited leverage, a demonstrated vulnerability and an emboldened adversary. Even as Iran reels from shortages and inflation, Mr. Trump is likely to increasingly feel the pressure of the approaching midterm elections in the shadow of an unpopular war and high gas prices. It is a dangerous combination, experts say, that could prompt Iran to sense American weakness and lash out.

“They read him now as not wanting to escalate militarily,” Dennis B. Ross, a former Middle East negotiator for presidents of both parties, said of Iran’s leaders. “That creates an incentive for them to show that they may escalate militarily.”

Mr. Bessent told CNBC on Thursday that the Treasury Department would hold a news conference about the new measures targeting Iran next Monday. He said traders had been wrong to bid up the price of oil in response, given that the administration’s new economic threats were a sign there would not be an immediate return to full-scale bombing.

No full-scale bombing, but also no genuinely open strait, so I am not sure what exactly we think the impact on oil prices should be.

As  I suggested yesterday, Trump was making noise that the sanctions would hit any 3rd parties, but I'm not really sure there's much room for that.

Morning

Effing Friday!

Happy Hour

Get happy

Probably In About Six Months To A Year

We might create Commander Data one day but the idea that the spicy chatboats are going to become sentient is ridiculous. Belief in the probability signals a type (gullible, self-important, self-styled smartest guy in the room, likely has given his chatbot a woman's name).

Oh What A Lovely War

Sean is trying so hard here, but he really can't manage to do it.

Rising Stars

Obviously I don't trust the Trump FBI about anything, but Swalwell's life trajectory has certainly changed.

Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and then raided his home in Washington, DC, the next day as part of an ongoing probe connected to sexual assault allegations, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Weaponized Interdependence

Sure the US controls many of the levers, but there is still the "inter" in "interdepdence" and there are limits to how much you can punish others without punishing yourself and everybody.

Donald Trump has announced a new campaign to isolate Iran’s economy, threatening “tremendous economic consequences” on any country that helps or does business with Tehran, a move that could set up a fresh confrontation with China if implemented.

“Today, I am announcing the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences.”

And, for better or for worse, countries will move away from that system as best they can. 

Kind Of A Big Deal

It is kind of a big deal that Iran destroyed the "U.S. Navy’s main resupply base."  Not my area at all, but while their have been plenty of troop deaths/casualties in our various misadventures over the years, I don't remember any destruction of a strategic military asset of that importance.

I'm not saying Democrats should emulate what my imaginary Republicans would do, but you can imagine the kind of questioning - both from Republicans and the media (somewhat led by those Republicans) - Secretary of Defense Democrat would face if he had fucked things up so badly.

It will probably take some time for the full story of events to come out, and one will have to sift through the self-interested asscovering by other participants. But the sequences of events, and demands from Pete, will be interesting to learn about!

We know he fired everybody who knew anything.

These misadventures do give us an opportunity to remind ourselves just how vast our military empire is. And just how ultimately pointless and ineffectual it is.

Certainly ineffectual at what we are supposed to think it is for.

Morning

Theatrical Thursday.

Happy Hour

Get happy

They All Still Received Their T Shots

Food isn't necessary.

The USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t able to be resupplied because the U.S. Navy’s main resupply base in the Gulf of Oman was destroyed by Iranian strikes—a fact that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose not to make public, David Rhode, MS NOW’s senior national security reporter, said on Tuesday.

From late February until June, Iran launched extensive missile and drone strikes on Naval Support Activity Bahrain, causing devastating damage that was not acknowledged by the Pentagon.

Dems Drive The News Cycle Precisely Once

And, predictably, the usual suspects start lecturing them.

Let my friend Karl explain how to do politics without being nasty.

Bored Now

The man has MOVED ON and he thanks you for your attention to this matter.

For weeks, President Donald Trump has tried willing positive developments with Iran into existence, without much success.

On Tuesday, he seemed to adopt a new approach. Trump told top administration envoys to halt their conversations with Iran, according to a US official. Additionally, White House officials have recently communicated to political allies that they are shifting their strategy — going from “hammer Iran ASAP” to “strangle them” over time, according to a source familiar with the matter.

We ran out of hammers and it isn't clear we can strangle them. 

Travels With Natalie

Funny how journalists have suddenly discovered this person who barely existed before.

It was October 2023, and Donald Trump was due at a New York City courthouse to fight his latest set of legal troubles. But as the motorcade idled outside his Trump Tower residence, staffers confronted a more immediate problem: There wasn’t room for Harp, the hyper-loyal aide whose devotion to Trump had quickly entrenched her within his orbit.

A screaming match in the lobby ensued, with Harp insisting that Trump had personally asked her to attend the court appearance, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Denied a seat but determined not to be left behind, Harp jumped into an SUV trunk, according to the two sources and confirmed by a photo obtained by CNN.

Also most people know nothing about his regular late night insane posting marathons because, for some reason, journalists decided to pretend they don't exist.

A former right-wing television host, who began working for Trump after crediting him with saving her life, Harp has become a main conduit between the president and the outside world, passing along messages from allies and setting up meetings, tapping out Truth Social posts and toting printouts of laudatory articles, all while staying in close physical proximity at all hours of the day.

Someone who is always by his side yet oddly invisible. Strange! 

Morning

 Watermelon Wednesday

Tuesday Evening

Enjoy

99.8% Accuracy

A big problem with "computer say no" technology is that nobody understands the implications of false positive rates.

Sainsbury’s has paused the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and ejected from the shop.

... 

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology. Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.”

It isn't even clear what "99.98% accuracy rate" means here. I suspect it is a very made up number, so I am not going to use some ADVANCED MATH, which I might if I had any idea what it was supposed to mean. 

I will interpret it in the most generous (to them) way possible: 9998 times out of 10000 when it identifies a match with a "known shoplifter" it is correct.  This means 2 times out of every 10000 the alarm goes off for a wrong person.

According to their website, this (fake) number includes "human expertise" which presumably means the "trained manager."

99.98% accuracy, thanks to our combination of distinct specialised algorithms and human expertise

So 9998 times out every 10000 sounds pretty good, right! This is a major supermarket chain. It has 1500 stores (I don't know if facewatch is in all of them, but let's assume it is).  Of  the system dings just once per week per store, you're going to harass a wrong person about every 6 weeks.

But if the system only dings once per week per store, it's hard to imagine any calculation such that it's worth it.  If, instead, it dings once per day per store (on average), you're going to harass a wrong person once per week. That's potentially 4 bad news stories per month.

This is leaving aside just how people get on the "known shoplifter" list in the first place.

Is It Because You Suck, Seth

I have long been confused about why he thought he could win against Markey from the right in a Massachusetts Dem primary.

Primary numbers: We're just two weeks away from the Massachusetts primary, and a new poll released this morning by WCVB and the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows incumbent Sen. Ed Markey with a big lead over Rep. Seth Moulton among likely voters in the Democratic race for Senate. Among 445 registered voters interviewed for the poll, 60% of respondents said they would vote for Markey if the primary was being held that day, compared to just 32% for Moulton.

WHOCOULDANODE

Not faulting the whistleblower, of course, but our media largely played along with bullshit they knew was bullshit because they liked it.

The Trump administration’s findings that three Ivy League schools violated civil rights law by tolerating antisemitism were predetermined by political priorities that blew past the evidence and cast aside standard investigative procedures, according to a whistleblower account provided to Congress.

The disclosure, by Haley Van Erem, a veteran Justice Department civil rights attorney, involves investigations into whether Harvard, Brown and Columbia universities broke the law by allowing antisemitism to flourish on their campuses.