Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

All hail the time of the bunny!

“woke” is the new caravan.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

I really should read my own blog.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

This blog will pay for itself.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Missing F35 Has Been Found (Dammit)

Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Missing F35 Has Been Found (Dammit)

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Late Night Open Thread: The Vernal Pool of Social-Media News Jokes - STOCKPILE

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)

News-related jokes on social media usually have the lifespan of a vernal pool, but sometimes I regret the ones that die too swiftly…



Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Missing F35 Has Been Found (Dammit)


(MiG-31)

Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Missing F35 Has Been Found (Dammit) 1

Not technically social media, but Alex Petri remains a treasure:

Hypothetically, if a plane followed me home, looking lost and confused, would I need to contact the U.S. military immediately?…

I know this might be the jet the U.S. military is looking for, but I have a lot of questions I want answered before releasing it to its prior owner. I think a jet’s owners need to be responsible, even if it is a purebred jet that can cost in some cases over $100 million. I understand that you don’t have to keep your jet on a leash everywhere it goes, but then the least you can do is install an absolutely reliable tracker. A jet its size, with its needs, should not be wandering around on its own. It might get into a bad situation with a smaller, more aggressive plane, or a bigger plane that was on-leash.

Also, I hate to say this, but I was Googling the U.S. military and its record of caring for its F-35s, and I was not at all satisfied with what I saw! This is not the first one to suffer an unexpected mishap, nor the only one in South Carolina. Nor is it even the most expensive. I know that some breeds have issues; I used to have a bulldog! But if you bring a breed with these needs home, one that has a single engine and is vulnerable to fire and something called “wing drop,” you have to be ready to step up to the task! That’s all…

I don’t understand all the terms in the tweet below, but I suspect Soonergrunt knows whereof he tweets…

(The E-4 Mafia explained)

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  1. 1.

    Brachiator

    losing an F-35 because the pilot put it on autopilot before ejecting and then not being able to track it because it’s too good of a stealth fighter is probably the funniest possible fuck-up in modern military history.

    I guess that Romulan cloaking device they found at Area 51 really does work.

  2. 2.

    Caravelle

    This was my favorite joke in the Alexandra Petri piece:

    I quickly Googled “what do planes eat,” but the answers varied widely from plane to plane, and I was not sure exactly what breed of plane I was working with and did not want to make it sick by mistake.

    Finally, I decided money was a good start. I know that F-35s like to ravenously consume huge amounts of money, so after a little deliberation, I found the birthday card I had received from the aunt and uncle who still insist on sending a dollar for each year and offered the jet a couple of bills, lighting each on fire.
    It gobbled them right up and seemed to feel a little better.

  3. 3.

    lowtechcyclist

    I spent five years of my life in South Carolina. It has its rural areas, but it doesn’t exactly have any areas that are totally deserted. I’d think it came down close enough to someone’s house that they had to notice right away!

  11. 11.

    Mousebumples

    Good morning, everyone!

    We (with WaterGirl’s help) are starting up postcard threads (+music!) again – starting Saturday. We’ll be writing for Ohio (Issue 1, I believe) and Virginia state elections.

    Going with Tuesday & Saturday threads, and I think 7pm central for both (8pm eastern).

    Postcards to Voters has Ohio addresses right now, and you can text JOIN to 484-275-2229 or email [email protected] to sign up.

    There was at least 1 Virginia focused group in the thread last night, and I’m not sure if MazeDancer will be distributing addresses through Postcard Patriots (probably?).

    Hope to see you there!

  21. 21.

    New Deal democrat

    And this post also solved the mystery of the disappearance of Popehat from Mastodon. He went over to bluesky, which doesn’t allow lurkers.

    oh.

  23. 23.

    Geo Wilcox

    @Raoul Paste: These  planes do not fly well in storms. That’s the back story. All that money for something that can only fly in perfect weather conditions.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Mousebumples:

    I’m curious whether BlueSky tracks invites to map out social networks.

    This week is still hell for me, but I might sign up next week to check it out.  I still haven’t don’t anything with my Mastodon account except lurk.

  31. 31.

    Mousebumples

    @Baud: I’m curious whether BlueSky tracks invites to map out social networks.

    Not sure. I don’t have anyone who’s used invites to join yet, I don’t think. Idk if Omnes can see that I joined off a shared invite code.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    Didn’t TFG say something dumb one time (why yes) which indicated that he thought the stealth fighters were actually invisible?

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: South Carolina has no deserted areas, but some parts of the Lowlands are sparsely populated. Maybe tbe F-35 happened to crash in a swampy area surrounded by big soybean fields, with no near neighbors. People likely would have heard something, but might have thought it was a sonic boom, which happen occasionally. Or maybe they were watching football with the volume up, which happens a lot.

    But I think state and local media reporting will shed light on the strange phenomenon of a jet so stealthy it could crash without being noticed.

  48. 48.

    YY_Sima Qian

    This is still weird. Stealthy fighters, at least American & Chinese ones, typically fly w/ radar reflectors (Luneberg lenses) attached in peacetime, so that they can be tracked by radar, & break up their reduced radar signatures if they are flying near non-friendly airspace & likely to be painted by unfriendly radars. Flying w/in the US, one would think it would have its transponder on, as well. How does the USG & state/local authorities not be able to find it for so long?

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: I wonder if Tom Watson migrated to another platform. That would be Tom Watson the liberal professor at Columbia, not the golfer or the Labour politician.

    Watson commented a lot on New York state politics. Maybe I’ll ask about him on “Chester A. Arthur’s” Twitter account.

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @Geo Wilcox: People love to drag the F-35, but the plane’s principal defect isn’t the capability, it’s the cost.

    The F-35 is by no means the perfect jet. However, Finland has plenty of adverse flying conditions, and when they had to choose between the F-35, the Swedish Grippen and the Eurofighter, they chose the F-35 to be their new fighter plane.

  54. 54.

    Ken

    Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li’s tweet is funny but true, except it missed at least one air force.  Also, the implication that the Marines are the ones with the third-best air force is going to draw comment.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @Ken: I think the idea behind the Marine air force is they anticipate needing close sir support and trust Marine pilots more for this risky operation.

    Also, their version of the F-35 can take off vertically. This allows their staging (I think) on the large ships that can deliver hundreds of Marines to a conflict zone, Even if they have to fly the F-35s in from carriers, they can operate them without a good runway.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @New Deal democrat:

    That’s too bad. Popehat was one of my favorites on Twitter, and his audience has to be shrinking significantly, at least in the short term. The Bluesky gated community doesn’t seem very welcoming so far.

  60. 60.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @lowtechcyclist: Near Indiantown, on Old Georgetown Road—although there are several churches there so I’m not sure which one he was referring to. The town & road are findable in Google Maps, although I don’t see any road closures indicated on the map.

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