Matt Blaze

@paul_ipv6 The diversity and messiness that they hate are to me exacly what makes this country a beautiful place worth fighting for.

More ICBM photos and discussion here: https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/titans/

According to https://thebulletin.org/, it's currently 85 seconds to midnight.

Captured with a DSLR and a Zeiss 21mm Distagon lens. Handheld (there was no room to set up a tripod).

In 2009, I was fortunate to join a "top to bottom" tour of former Air Force Titan ICBM site 571-7, now preserved as a museum. Titan II missiles carried a nine megaton(!) "physics package" in the "reentry vehicle" (which they emphatically assured me had been removed from this missile, but I still wouldn't advise upsetting them too much).

Alternatively, one might take an "originalist" approach to the holiday and focus on the birth of American independence. But then you risk engaging with uncomfortable ideas like separation of powers, checks and balances, the rule of law, accountability of leaders, and other such woke distractions.

Of course, if you treat July 4th as being about the country rather than just its military, you're ultimately forced to confront the fact that America is complicated, messy, and diverse.

One of the things that bothers me about Trump's Fourth of July airshow was that it rewrote the holiday exclusively as a celebration of military power rather than as a celebration of the country that power protects. It's fine to honor the sacrifices and accomplishments of our military, but that's not all there is for us to be proud of (or to critique and reflect on).

Even Soviet patriotic parades featured the occasional tractor.

Titan II ICBM, Launch Complex 571-7, Sahuarita, AZ, 2009.

Over a megaton of pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4185185541

#photography

Just got the weirdest email from something (or someone) purporting to be an “automated AI agent” asking me to compare some technical idea with a paper I wrote 20 years ago. It was written in convincingly conversational English.

I didn’t read the details of the idea carefully, but it was plausibly related.

If it were a human researcher or student, I’d probably engage, but training private AI systems for free is not my idea of a good use of a weekend.

Smoke is already so thick that you can barely see fireworks

B1 flyover inbound

Looks like Trump will be speaking shortly, accompanied by a B1 bomber (with afterburner) zipping across the Mall, followed by an absurdly large fireworks display that might test everyone's smoke detectors.

B1 is currently circling east of DC.

They're still keeping a B1 in the air in a pattern near DC, which is supposed to start off the fireworks display with an afterburner run down the mall. That will be loud.

No official word yet on whether DC's mega-fireworks show (and Dear Leader's speech) is on or not for tonight. Still lightning in the area.

Anyway, I am convinced that I enjoyed this stupid airshow in the best possible way: listening to ATC audio while occasionally looking up at planes in the distance out the window from an air conditioned room.

Now some dude is telling me that there weren’t fighter jets flying over NYC in the weeks following 9/11 because “he was there”. So was I, asshole.

They’re busily asking everyone on the radio how much fuel they have. The show controllers have switched from their calm air traffic control voices to their “I will cut you” voices.

The rest of the airshow has been pushed back an hour. But because the mall has been evacuated, there will be no one to see it. And it will be dark out.

So… a bunch of storm cels came in just as the parade of AF1 planes was heading to the Mall. Just before they went by, the Mall was evacuated. In the words of the Skyboss on the radio: “Fucking awesome planning here”

AF1 (the new emolumental 747-800) is in the air, with Trump possibly on board for some reason, for a flyby later. Callsign is AF1 on ADSB, suggesting Trump on board, but using “Freedom 1” on the air.

Every time a fighter jet does a loud flyby, I’m transported back to the weeks after 9/11 when combat air patrols were constantly buzzing the city and everyone on the street would involuntarily duck.

Not my favorite kind of Proustian moment.