Tab Clearing...

• Some Substackers are big mad about the automated AI flag.


• A student wrote a piece for his California high school newspaper looking into local connections in the Epstein Files. Some people got big mad.


• I will henceforth be referring to CVS as "shampoo jail". I hope it makes them big mad.

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The Only Two...

The Enola Gay was reassembled from storage and put on permanent display at the Udvar-Hazy museum in 2003.

When I visited in November of 2015, the way it was displayed made it nearly impossible for me to frame the entire aircraft in a photo from the floor. It's pretty crowded in there.

On the other hand, you can't help but come nose-to-nose with the only other aircraft to have dropped an atomic bomb in anger. Round the corner in the World War II gallery in the USAF Museum and Bockscar is right there up in your grille.

Memes on Friday!

Lockheed Snouts!

Lockheed F-94A Starfire

The other day I finally did something I've been meaning to do since I first moved to Indianapolis almost twenty years ago.

I booked a room for two nights at a Holiday Inn Express on the east side of Dayton, Ohio. While it's only a little over two hours away, this allowed me to drive out there at a leisurely pace around noon on Tuesday, grab a late lunch, and check into the hotel so that the next morning I could get to the USAF museum about the time it opened, walk until my feet couldn't take any more walking, then go back to the hotel and drive home all nicely rested at a leisurely pace on Thursday morning.

Lockheed P-38L Lightning

When I went to Udvar-Hazy back in 2015, I was shooting a Nikon D200 with an 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 consumer zoom lens, backed up with the Coolpix P7000. Relatively speaking, I had no idea what I was doing. This time I not only had better bodies and lenses, but more importantly I had eleven years more experience taking photos.

Now to sort through the images on the cards and see what I have.

These two images are straight-out-of-camera JPEGs shot with the Canon EOS R5 and RF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

Meme Dump!

Bad Ideas

This is how you generate restrictive legislation... if you're lucky. Molotov cocktails if you're not.

Hump Day Meme Dump!

Zoom Zoom!

You want a little vicarious zooming around Italy's Amalfi Coast in a rental Mazda MX-5? Here you go!

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Tab Clearing...

• The state of the air war over Ukraine, four years on...


• The Rise of American Bushido


• Meta, belatedly and ineffectively, gets worried about creepers using its pervert glasses.

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I'm good, thanks...

"What is X Money? The new service on X basically provides banking and financial services for paying X Premium and Premium+ subscribers right within the app. X Money includes peer-to-peer payments and money transfers within the X platform, as well as a deposit account. Users will also receive "the X card," a physical Visa debit card for ATM withdrawals and in-person transactions."

Now you'll be able to pay for your Grok-generated revenge porn without even leaving the app!

Meme Dump!

Back To The Meme Mines!

Automotif DCXXXII...

Here's a fresh shot of the 1955 Chevy Bel Air Sport Coupe that I first saw back in November of 2022. This time I noticed it before it got away and nabbed it with a Nikon Zfc and a Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens.

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Meme Dump!

Automotive History

Is the Cybertruck a bigger flop than the Edsel? Possibly so.

Meme Dump!

To Boldly Nerd Like No One Has Nerded Before

Any kid in my neighborhood when I was in elementary school would have cheerfully murdered people in their beds to get their hands on this USS Enterprise bridge playset.

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Houthis in the News Again

The Houthi announcement that they'd blockade Saudi tankers from transiting the Bab-el-Mandab has sent oil prices back toward the $100/barrel mark again.

Earlier this week, the Iran-aligned Houthis announced they had expanded their campaign against maritime traffic by targeting Saudi oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the key chokepoint on the Red Sea, through which Saudi Arabia has re-directed most of its crude oil shipments to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

China-bound tankers appear to move through Bab el-Mandeb, but some others, including Denmark-flagged products tanker Torm Innovation, have made U-turns in the Red Sea and are now heading north toward the Suez Canal.

Despite the Houthi blockade, “two China-crewed, China-bound tankers loaded at Yanbu and cleared Bab al-Mandeb apparently untouched,” maritime intelligence firm Windward said on Thursday.

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Memes For Friday!

Meme Dump!