Unshitting The Bed

I think the best practical option is for Donald Trump to get down on his knees and apologize and then pay billions of dollars in reparations, but assuming that is off the table, I have absolutely no idea what should be done.

The president had wavered for weeks over the Saudi appeals for help in fighting the Houthis, who took advantage of the instability in the Middle East and reignited their war with the kingdom this summer.

But things came to a head on Thursday: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader and a major ally in the Iran war, called the president to implore him, again, to step in to help blunt the rapidly advancing group, administration officials said.

Mr. Trump had met with advisers just the day before and told them he did not favor strikes. But after speaking with the Saudi crown prince, he reversed himself and told the Pentagon to prepare for airstrikes against the Houthis.

But by midday Sunday, the president appeared to have reversed himself again. There would be no U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis — at least not for the time being, according to administration officials. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss military planning.

I lean towards "stay out of it, less bombing is always better" in all cases, especially with Donny and Pete running things, so maybe I should applaud here!

Morning

Mopey Monday

Sure, Whatever

Ah, a precursor hyperloop (Teslas in tunnels). 

Elon Musk recently claimed that his tunneling startup The Boring Company is working on “a simple precursor Hyperloop” between Austin and San Antonio that will reduce the journey between the two cities to less than 30 minutes.

The Boring Company account shared Musk’s statement and said it “would be excited and honored to build this massive infrastructure project.”

It will also go directly to Mars.

Hype man is running out of new ideas. 

B.S.

It never caught on like the Friedman Unit, but the FU's companion was the Biden Shot. Biden would say something like, "we gotta give it a shot, man," in response to every call for escalation.

Sure Why Not

Any Dem that doesn't run on "we are bulldozing all this shit" does not deserve to win.

Yes I understand this for the Supremos.

The Thousand Year Republican Reign

I do think that if Republicans could ever manage to govern nationally mostly like the fantasy Northeastern Republican governor* - the Mitt Romney, Bill Welds of the imagination - they could hold onto power for a long time.

This isn't because I think, as we were told repeatedly when Obama won, that America is and will always be a "center right nation." It's because the deck is stacked in favor of Republicans in a few ways.

A couple of examples are that the money men and journalists (not unrelated!) love them and the unrepresentative Senate is horribly skewed in their favor.  

The flip side of this is that Democrats do amazingly well, considering. I don't think its observed enough that it's a fucking miracle that the Democrats manage to keep as many seats as they do in the Senate.

"What if Republicans, but almost good?" is, of course, a journalist fantasy, not mine. I don't think they're capable for reasons that don't get enough attention (they aren't Massachusetts Mitts, their agenda isn't actually popular and never is once they try to implement it). But if they could...
 
*It's very funny that when we ran out of those guys, journalists gave Chris Christie - approval rating, 14% - an apartment in the green room.

F.U.

The next 6 months will be critical.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told a crowd of Iowa conservatives Saturday he believes current high inflation is being caused by the U.S.-Iran war — but said he sees an end to the conflict within six months.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Afternoon

Brief pause in catastrophic developments.

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.