CAVU conditions in National Capital Region = DC ANG Vipers booming around overhead = spotters motivated

"Goodbye, fares and queues -- I'm happy on my Hercules!" Hercules ca. 1950s

Normalize giving positive affirmations to your trusted steed 🚲

With respect to the F-35s reportedly zorching down to Puerto Rico, future events are anyone's guess, but: we're downstream of raids against North Korea (as we learn) Iran and Yemen, and who knows where else, which, if inconclusive, also were unchallenged and unpunished. Why not Venezuela?

Back in the day we'd have hearings to establish some of this 👇but in these times, will anything come of this extraordinary fiasco? Two cents offered: either Other Agencies of Government didn't agree to play or wanted to do something leadership felt would take too long -- hence the action movie

Night-SSGN-sub-dive-snoop 'n poop incursions fire the imagination. They seem like a solved problem and they feel familiar from the movies. But history suggests your pWin is a coin flip at best. So many SBS mini-sub raids, even the famous one against the Tirpitz, were debacles. Often glossed over

For those just getting read in, this is the NYT story: the SEALs raided North Korea to try to plant a surveillance tap but the op went bad + they killed a boatload of Korean divers. At least the *second* SEAL snoop 'n poop into NK, we learn! Congress not told. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...

The North Korea thing is absolutely jaw-dropping for so many reasons but let's dial in on just one: Korean coastal divers and fishers are world icons. Mollusk, clam, pearl diving -- it's been in National Geographic and all the others. Yet JSOC and SpecWar, per that NYT story, were surprised by it!

very few ppl are as talented and fortunate as bill cunningham. but i often think about how he was able to live an honest life doing what he loved because he lived simply. even at the height of his career, he slept on a cot. as he once said, "if you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do."

On the weirdness of the unreality of the Present Situation, vol. 2: it’s wild that the chosen simulacrum is a late-70s movie about the perception of urban violence. It’s 2025 yet our public affairs LARP is “Dirty Harry” or “Death Wish”

Constructive discush on Bsky today about the weirdness of the unrealness of the ongoing situation in the District. The simulacrum of dictatorship -- and at what point does the simulacrum become reality. Ideally never! But in the meantime yes, it is another pageant for TV with that as the object.

That rarest of rara avis -- the conservative, small-c, artist: He saw the beauty of the built environment and the railways at a time when newness madness tore down the old Euston, when Dr. Beeching ripped out thousands of route miles, etc -- and who knows what else might have gone but for Betjeman

i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.

In non-joke reax -- and I'm going to use some shorthand terms here with no wish to be needlessly cruel about it -- all the Feds and National Guard troopers have done is push the homeless people to different locations. All the same familiar street people are still around but in different spots.

Is there a way to craft a wisecrack along the lines of, “with all these National Guard troops and Feds on every corner now I know how the Afghans felt” or is that a plane with no landing gear?

“No other invention combines the useful with the pleasant as closely as the bicycle.” - Adam Opel (1837-1895), founder of Adam Opel AG, which originally produced sewing machines and bicycles, and later automobiles

Thank goodness we have the increased police presence here in Georgetown because when I was headed back from Vineyard Vines to get my salad at Sweetgreen a family of European tourists looked at me disrespectfully. Fortunately ICE was right there.

In non-joke reax, Tom's characterization is correct 👇. In all likelihood, to the degree any of it is real, this "means" (tho wat does anything mean anymore) an Atlantic boat out of Kings Bay and a Pacific boat out of PacNorWest.

Based on the multiple vectors of potential threats posed against the United States, I have ordered that the headquarters of our Department of Defense be given five sides -- that way no one can attack by surprise. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Don't be surprised if the same Best Buy with big outdoor placards that claim Switch 2 and Mario characters are "available here" also has a placard on an easel inside announcing the Switch 2 consoles are out of stock because this world is a sandcastle of lies

Terminal velocity, full freefall, bottomless pit cray-cray.

Might actually become spring around here

METAPHOR ALERT

Area Dad Departs On Inexpressible Journey Across Time And Space During Built To Spill Guitar Breakdown

Isn't it weird that the Fantastic Four appear to have all the notional ingredients that it seems like would be required to translate into onscreen success -- and yet they never can? It's just a very difficult property to make work, for various reasons.

History doesn't repeat, but it IS ignored by illiterate dipshits.

Another sunrise over bleak Potomagrad

"Oh so now it's a crime to pass out drunk at my dumb sister's wedding" I mean it's not a crime SSG McGillicuddy but also you probably shouldn't be SECDEF

Logan, Hulkie and Tony in a big meeting of the superheroes

"Masculine Energy"

A time of utter insanity with no guardrails, nor bottom to touch. One challenge is keeping up. Another is with actions that might appear constructive but because of the nature of the ongoing stupidity, might wind up being destructive after all. Milley's pardon is a case study.

Wonder Woman steps into the break room and finds a sullen Hulkie.

Never laid eyes on one either but look how this legendary artifact continues to live on in the mythos of the nation. If I'd only had it, it would have fixed me and I could have been happy

Yes. The issue is that the current-events dipsh*ts with unspendable wealth were little rich b*tches before their level of wealth rose to unspendable -- so what we are seeing is Rich Boiism on a cosmic scale and not Regular Person Made Good-type conduct like Jane's 👇

I feel like I'm different. They should conduct an experiment by giving me unspendable wealth so I can try it out.

augh … no … no — don’t look, shipmates. LOOK AWAY, LADS

Fortunately the only problem facing your United States Navy was a deficit in names for pending vessels! Now that we have those in hand, everything's good to go -- Another Century of Guaranteed American Naval Supremacy

Can't stand how often you see a photograph in a book or magazine these days that clearly was downloaded from the Internet and isn't a sufficient resolution for the way it's being used in print. How do professional designers and publishers let that out the door?

It remains wild to be how much giant companies are pressing clearly-not-ready-for-use tools on us to cash in on AI hype. No real consumer is asking for any of this.

Haven't seen a case of gigantism this bad since Ken Griffey Jr. joined the Springfield Nuclear softball team

A person with a drawer full of knives evaluates whether to order a couple of new Swiss Army Knives before pending events raise the prospect of new tariffs on Swiss imports. Now I understand the social media concept of boy math.

DOGE is either going to be a horrifying example of state functions being carved up by predatory corporations, or a completely impotent hilarious mess where Musk et al march round depts for a week before being ushered gently into the Ignore Room with a nice latte. The problem is not knowing which.

We've made the decision to get out of traditional battery-powered flashlights, both mainstream alkaline and CR123A. We got to the end of the pack of CR123As and the thought of getting more was like contemplating a shipment of whale oil for the hurricane lamp. Time to move on to all rechargeables

Unbagging, unfolding, arranging and opening a big, beautiful Sunday newspaper -- a feast for all five senses when combined with fresh coffee and WETA on the radio

Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a big one with 24 hours of endurance, highly relevant payloads and the ability to take off from dirt, sand, grass or a ship at sea? www.ga-asi.com/remotely-pil...

Love this 65-foot Coast Guard harbor tug and wish I were its captain

Cold one this morning