The News In Brief

So we lost our state of the art fighter temporarily. It crashed and disappeared.

Isn't that what it's supposed to do? Disappear that is? Sounds like the reverse engineering of the space aliens works like a charm. For $85 mil/ea I would hope it would work. But they should put in a remote switch to shut down the Klingon cloaking device when it crashes so they can find it. At least a cellphone with the"find me function" switched on. They could also save money getting rid of the string the pilots use to guide themselves to the cockpit while on the runway since it's invisible.

According to Lockheed Martin, "the F-35B Lightning II is the most lethal and survivable aircraft in the world." Sounds like it's lethal to our pilots and whatever it falls out of the sky on, and "survivable" must have a new definition by military standards. Did the AI computer get into an argument with the pilot, so it ejected him? I can just imagine him landing in someone's backyard and saying"Mind if I use your phone? My F35 just ejected me". And it's a relief to know that only 10 have crashed so far- $850 mil. I can't wait to see how well it works in combat given how well it works in training. And the DOD got a 3% discount on a bulk order! What a bargain! Made in China perhaps?

Now if they can only make it fly AND land (with pilot) Lockheed Martin will have something to be proud of.

"We get a lot for a little.” or "War becomes fashionable."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2SxvBKZMcY

Why didn't they call it "We get a lot of bangs for the buck"? It seems like a good time to advertise the benefits of war according to the Republicans. I wonder who paid for this ad? The taxpayers? The horrors of war are now being looked upon like the Superbowl by our government. No expensive tickets required. Just your tax dollars. When are we going to get a live broadcast with a play by play and halftime show? They already had a trial version in Iraq.

Ukraine is vast improvement over the Iraq wars and Vietnam. No Americans put at risk and a bountiful money maker for the defense industry. Lots of bombs to drop. It's ONLY 5% of the military budget. And anyway, the"best used by date" stamped on all the weapons we're sending Ukraine was about to expire. And those pesky cluster bombs? The ones banned by the UN? Great way to get rid of them. Real frugal of the conservative Republicans. Waste nothing. These are highest class of used car salesmen. A real boost for the US economy! 20 years of economic prosperity! Tough on the Ukrainians and Russians but you can't have everything. Real progress is being made for America! And if Trump says he can end the war in a day, why doesn't he just do it? He and Putin are buddies after all. Another golden shower in Moscow and a show of good faith for his reelection campaign. It might upset the Republicans plan for economic recovery though.

Maybe our government will start sending some humanitarian aid to needy Americans. Rather than taking it away. It seems to me that they have declared war on us. Maybe biological and chemical warfare don't count yet. Or economic. We got rid of 2 million Americans with COVID (the highest number out of all countries) and are poisoning the rest with toxic chemicals and food and enslaving people with wage war and debt.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1201781387/climate-change-emissions-report-offers-hope

Hope here just means change the target.

They (the IEA) seem to have overlooked the new projection that 2023 average temperature will surpass 1.5°C. The US is currently increasing CO2 emissions rather than decreasing. And the gulf stream is collapsing. And Antarctica is melting away (the next real estate boom?). Time to rewrite the report. It's already outdated.

And naturally, the Petro industry wants to increase production still more as "market realities" should overide warming realities. Simply put, it would hurt their profits. It's a contradiction that we can increase use of fossil fuel consumption when we need to eliminate it, isn't it?

Somehow sucking the entire atmosphere of the planet to filter out CO2 seems a bit farfetched, since we can't build enough air conditioning and supply power to run them to keep ROOMS cool now. (The electric grid in the US is not capable of supporting a changeover to elimination of fossil fuel to complete electric and will take decades to upgrade. ) Fortunately the petroleum companies will be right there to supply the needed coal to run the atmospheric filters. Bless them.

Hope is in the air!

So let's all jump on the hope bandwagon and ignore reality.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/the-salary-a-single-person-needs-to-get-by-in-every-us-state.html

The majority of Americans are on the brink of bankruptcy, only avoiding it by credit card debt. Wage stagnation, taxes and inflation have put them there while corporate profits have increased dramatically transferring wealth upwards to the elite few. But no mention of that in the article.

According to this article there is no place in the US where you can live on 30k a year. Unless of course you live on the street or in your car ( if you can find a place to park it for free) and you don't get shot by the police for "suspiciously sleeping". Disturbing the peace by snoring?

At $112k per year and a tourist industry salary of $20k/yr Hawaii (the so called ALOHA state) is a good place to avoid. Your only $92k short. According to the article you just need to make compromises. Find a room to share with 10 other people and dumpster dive for food sounds like a good plan. Both of which are illegal by the way. And forget a vehicle. Just do with less. Learn to budget your money better. Skip meals, it'll help you lose weight.

After all it is paradise.

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/09/27/furloughs-layoffs-mounts-maui-economic-headwinds-continue/

"The governor is hoping the reopening of West Maui in October will be enough to entice visitors back. "

A "VISIT THE RUINS!" ad campaign should do the trick.Funded by the taxpayer of course. Something like visiting Rome to see the ruins. Rome gets lots of tourists. 10 years projected to rebuild Lahaina for an estimate of $6 billion. All due to the inaction of the government not mowing the grass which they knew was a wildfire fire hazard since 2018 and ignored. Accountability - none. So let's sue the electric company. Put the blame elsewhere. Let's ignore the fact that had they shut down the power there would have been no way to pump water. Civil Defense sirens weren't used because the county director thought people were so stupid they were going to run into the fire. Who was stupid? Then he resigned for health reasons. Mental health or the fear of people coming after him for blood?

It's going to be interesting to see how the contractors are going to manage rebuilding an entire town all at once. Dump truck gridlock galore.

Somehow the homeless who were in Maui don't qualify for any of the benefits that are being given to the others (who are now homeless). However the government of Hawaii is going to build them a tiny home community in a few years. So they say. Has this become a caste society? What do they do for "a few years"? How are they different from all the rest of the newly created homeless? Discrimination? "Save the banyan tree" is the battle cry! It's a shelter for the homeless!