Marines at US embassy exchange gunfire in Port-au-Prince last Thursday evening. @danlamothe.bsky.social via @washingtonpost.com 🎁 link //essential services only at the embassy. Are supplies currently brought in by helicopter? That’s a long 4 mi to airport if everything falls apart. wapo.st/3LFc3Dw

Just had a very amusing mental image of smart car technicals routing cybertrucks in an urban setting.

As someone personally involved in some of the episodes the author cites here, I will generously term this analysis complete and utter malarkey.

No shortage of stories this week that will make you want to take a shower. Add this to the list:

every Tesla recall starts overseas, and then eventually comes to the US after a matter of days or weeks... it's one of the best ways to measure the decline and fall of this country's regulatory capacity/credibility

I haven’t been this excited about a Subaru sighting on the flip-side of the hemisphere since I spotted one used as a daily driver by the protagonist in “Mr Inbetween.”

I wasn't actually going for Subaru in it's natural environment pic, but if I say the name Richard Attenborough, you'll read the next line in your head in his voice. Here's Paul's Subaru XV parked up with an Aurora Australis dazzling in the night sky of the rugged South Otago Coast of New Zealand

Every medic:

Once again, if you wrote a story in which the jetsetting corrupt FBI chief took a government plane to the "Boondoggle Ranch" an editor would tell you to get a different job, because you're not cut out for writing believable stories.

“Meeks noted that between January 2024 and June this year, some 85 percent of all actionable intelligence used by the Joint Interagency Task Force South”…” originated in Colombia.” In other words, this is (apparently) harming actual drug interdiction.

“Policing” butts in usage as far back as the late ‘50s. Happy Veteran’s Day.

The best way to thank a veteran today is to honor the Constitution we swore to defend. www.indystar.com/story/opinio...

Me thinking about negotiating with health insurance companies

Another species no longer on the global Endangered list: Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). A few decades after a Star Trek movie where the central conflict was the total extinction of the humpback, their numbers are rising fast enough to put them at "Least Concern" on the IUCN Red List.

Me: the creeper taking your photo while you're not looking You: the performative reader

With the Lowdown having just concluded, I don’t want to call Pluribus the tv event of the year. However, 2 episodes in, Vince Gilligan doesn’t miss. So glad to see Rhea Seehorn get the lead she deserves. Kaiya Shunyata via @ebertvoices.bsky.social www.rogerebert.com/streaming/pl...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Canada has lost its measles elimination status because of continued spread, international health experts say.

🤯

It's so cool that when the right person lands a direct hit on ol' Elon he can't stop from lighting up and spinning his bowtie like a carnival game clown

Oh so now this is interesting -- what if Musk's trillion-dollar pay package is just a way for him to get a $50bn one?

To be clear, you can’t have too many watches. *However* I spend zero extra time on my shoes twice a year when the Daylight Savings/No Savings (?) hits.

Been out walking around Spain for three weeks thinking about stuff and making new friends… what did I miss?

The BBC visits an IDF outpost on the eastern edge of Gaza City: “The Gaza of maps and memories is gone, replaced by a monochrome landscape of rubble stretching flat and still for 180 degrees…there's almost nothing left to orient you here or identify the neighbourhoods.”

When I notice Blake is back to posting here (which I’m glad to see):

i miss the good old days when you could get a shloske for 9.50

There is some sad irony in McClatchy shutting its DC bureau the same day that Dick Cheney died. That bureau (then Knight-Ridder) did some of the best, most skeptical reporting anywhere in the run-up to the Iraq War. And they took a lot of shit for it at the time. www.cato.org/commentary/q...

A sort of title in the ‘30s behind 3xAA, John Wooden (yes, that guy). Close behind Rick Mount (thanks, Lew). Close with JBC. Close in ‘88 (thanks Mitch). Close with Glenn Robinson (thanks back injury/Grant). Close with Edey (boo, UConn). Tonight begins the @boilerball.bsky.social championship season

UPS flight #5X2976 crashed during takeoff from Louisville this afternoon. The MD-11F was bound for Honolulu. Video from the scene and imagery from local new helicopters indicate damage to the aircraft prior to becoming airborne. www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraf...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Several agencies are responding to a report of a plane crash near Fern Valley Road and Grade Lane. #louisville www.whas11.com/article/news...

1) Are we supposed to believe this wasn't done in coordination with the Cuomo campaign? 2) The people who did this need to be chased from polite society.

An ankle injury just ended walk-on-turned-star RB Devin Mockobee’s college career. Purdue has only won seven games in the past three years and many of the programs top players have left for the Portal each of the past few years. Mockobee stayed and he shined: www.nytimes.com/athletic/677...

Colts are all in on a Super Bowl push now. It only rests on more QB pressure and Daniel Jones being competent. Zero worries from here on out. (Did Sauce’s Madden rating slip allowing Brick Johnson to make a move? Need you on here @dannyheifetz.bsky.social )

With a near daily assault on norms, laws, and professionalism, it’s difficult to address all issues. However, one place to start could be to call recently cashiered/retired-early general and flag officers in front of Congress under oath. @maxboot.bsky.social via WaPo 🎁 link wapo.st/4qzucT3

“The military buildup in the region is the largest unrelated to disaster relief since 1994, when the United States sent two aircraft carriers and more than 20,000 troops to Haiti to take part in ‘Operation Uphold Democracy.’” www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...

Baseball, man.

Good. Seriously. Please let Trump pick every SEC coach. Let him make every decision for the entire conference. The only way we'll ever break Trump fever in that part of America is to let him get involved with their college football decisions because they care deeply about that shit

“Finney tells an important story w/ excellent, razor-sharp focus. ‘Orchestrating Power’ reveals the key intermediary role CoDs played in the mobilization for WWI.” - Jennifer Keene, ‘Doughboys, the Great War, & the Remaking of America’ Pre-order now! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Sub-Optimus

Happy Halloween, all. 🎃 👻 (Annual post)

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

EU car exports to China are in freefall. For a time, the North American market offered Europe’s carmakers an important offset from the China shock. But this cushion is now vanishing due to US protectionism.

The FBI director is flying his girlfriend around on private government planes while FBI agents go without paychecks and families prepare to go hungry as SNAP benefits are being suspended

U.S. military officials with Southern Command are making plans to deploy an assessment team to Jamaica, I'm told. State Department has received a formal request for assistance from the Jamaican government, and also is beginning to deploy a disaster response team and search-and-rescue squads.

CORMAC MCCARTHY: He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die. JOE ROGAN: sure. I've met guys like that

Nothing to see here, just a couple of B-1s passing within 20 miles of Venezuela’s coastline.

This is like when they send 3 henchmen to try and take out John Wick

Why is a carrier strike group steaming towards Venezuela? Why are B-1 and B-52 bombers taking beachside strolls? It’s possible that only a handful of people know the reasoning and fewer understand it. However, here is related background from @maxboot.bsky.social via WaPo 🎁 link wapo.st/42Y7vhp

The Washington Post and NYT should have Chicago on the front page every single day. Stories, columns and photos. Every day.