Is this funny or sad?

They got what they voted for, enjoy your DNC Utopia I guess.


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08...ers-about/

Quote:California Councilman Robbed While Speaking to Shop Owners About Crime (VIDEO)


On Monday, a California councilman was robbed while speaking to shop owners about crime in the Bay Area.

Emeryville council member Kalimah Priforce found his “wallet and keys had been stolen from his bike bag” at Bay Street Mall.

“A lot of stores that can’t afford private guards need panic buttons, a direct line to the police, so they don’t have to actually pick up the phone [and] call the police dispatch,” he said, before realizing he had been robbed, according to a report from Fox News.

Someone stole councilmember @priforce’s wallet while he was at Bay Street Monday speaking to store owners and workers about safety. @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/15sBhmvTad

— Betty Yu (@bett_yu) August 30, 2023

Priforce called the police to report the incident after realizing his things were gone.

“The thing is that they’re not going to get much from it, I am on a politician’s budget,” he joked to CBS News. “But no, everything is digital now. The criminals will adapt and we have to adapt with them.”

Priforce said that politicians need to be doing more to protect business owners.

“Better prepared, better cameras, better surveillance, better ways of being able to protect our local businesses,” he said. “Unfortunately, we place more emphasis on luxury-rate market apartments in our cities than we do on our public safety.”

The day before the robbery, a swarm of teens had descended on the mall and a massive brawl ensued.

“One gunshot was fired, one person was stabbed, and workers at stores like Bath & Body Works locked themselves in the stock room,” CBS News reports. “Police said the drama started with about 50 teens in one store before it escalated outside.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/fbi-kills-...seless-act

Quote:Digital Originals
After FBI kills disabled veteran in pre-dawn raid, family demands answers: 'It was a senseless act'
Theodore Deschler's family believes the Tennessee veteran was unarmed when FBI agents shot him dead
By Teny Sahakian Fox News
Published August 30, 2023 2:11pm EDT

Fox News Digital Originals Headlines
Watch the full length versions of these stories and more at foxnews.com/digital-originals
The family of a disabled veteran that FBI agents killed during a pre-dawn raid is demanding answers, saying law enforcement hasn't justified the raid or explained why Theodore "Teddy" Deschler was shot.
An FBI SWAT team descended on Deschler's Henderson, Tennessee, home on Aug. 16. About 15 minutes later, the 45-year-old veteran was shot dead, WBBJ reported. 
"It was a senseless act," Deschler’s brother, Russell Deschler, told WBBJ. "Teddy was a 100% disabled veteran. He had problems. He had severe PTSD. He had depression but he was getting help for it, but this was senseless." 
WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE
Deschler’s mother Bonnie Deschler, who was in her son's house the morning of the raid, said she answered the door when she heard agents pounding. They pulled her from the home and put her in the back of a police vehicle, she told WBBJ. When she asked the agents why they were there, they responded, "It’s none of your business," she said. 

Theodore Deschler, 45, was killed on Aug. 16, 2023, in an FBI raid of his home in Henderson, Tennessee. (Courtesy of Selmer Police Department)
The house was hit with flashbang explosives, tear gas and bullets, the family told WBBJ. The windows were shattered and SWAT trucks destroyed the yard, the outlet reported after visiting the scene. Russell said he believes his brother was unarmed, and that the agents were shooting into the house through the garage window, which would mean Deschler's position in the kitchen was obscured. 
VIDEO EXPOSES TENSE MOMENTS PRIOR TO DEADLY FBI RAID ON MAN ACCUSED OF THREATENING BIDEN
"He didn’t have a weapon on him. He was just trying to get out of the house because it was filled with tear gas," Russell told WBBJ.
"You couldn’t see. The height of the door and where Teddy was standing when they shot him and killed him, you couldn’t see if he was armed or not and you know he wasn’t," he added. "Because if you look at the door you could see where his hands were full of blood and went down the door. Well if he had a weapon in his hand…"  
Neighbor Alex Morris witnessed the incident after he was startled awake by the commotion outside.
"I heard a loud bang. Then I heard a couple more. I heard the loudspeakers, ‘Come out with your hands up. We’re the FBI. We’re not going anywhere,’" Morris told WBBJ. "Before I knew it, I was coming out to see what was going on and watched them bust out their windows. I reckon they got him in there."

A SWAT unit stands in full gear. (Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal - USA Today Network)
NYC CONMAN PERCHES ON BROKEN WINDOW OF SKYSCRAPER AS FBI RAIDS APARTMENT
Earlier this year, Deschler was arrested as a suspect following a gas station stabbing in a nearby town, according to the Selmer Police Department. Details of the attack and any subsequent charges remain unclear.
The family has demanded details surrounding the arrest warrant against Deschler and the circumstances of his death. 
"They said it’s an ongoing investigation, but they won’t say anything to us," Russell said.

FBI agents stand in front of police tape. (Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The FBI released a statement saying it is investigating the incident but provided no further details. 
"The FBI is reviewing an agent-involved shooting which occurred today at approximately 6:40 a.m. while FBI SWAT was conducting an arrest operation in Henderson, TN," said a statement from the federal law enforcement agency. "The subject is deceased. The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously. In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide."
The family said they are considering filing a civil suit against the FBI following the incident.
The FBI declined to comment on the case as it is an ongoing investigation. Neither Russell nor the Henderson Police Department immediately responded to Fox News' requests for comment. 

Biden makes comments today about The Maui fires and Hurricane Idalia, and other issues.

Horrible threatening comments with stern somber faced officials standing behind him.

Pressing Climate Change.

This is one of the most threatening comment sessions yet.

Get ready for major upheavals coming.

Masks, Vaccinations, Mandates,  Climate Controls, Gun Controls.

They'll start imposing regulations and mandates whether legal or not.

Watch the Video, and see some alarming highlights from a Twitter commenter.

He also made some choice comments in front of DeSantis today too!!

More money for Ukraine too !!!

All seems to be "tying in" somehow !!

Biden and New World Order Democrat Marxists are excessively dangerous. More so than ever before.


Link to --> RNC Research on Twitter


Horrible Biden . . . . . . 

Quote:by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
August 27, 2023

If you've been following the news, you'll know that shoplifting and looting have been on the rise across the US in recent months, with retailers from San Francisco to Portland to Washington, D.C., forced to close up shop in the face of mounting losses from the spate of increasingly brazen burglaries.

And you'll probably also be aware that the phenomenon is not confined to the US, with businesses in Canada and the UK and France and Australia and elsewhere similarly reporting an increase in robberies and theft since the scamdemic.

And you'll doubtless have heard the various explanations for this phenomenon doled out by the faithful media mouthpieces of the controlled two-party paradigm:

It's soaring inflation and the cost of living crisis that's causing desperate people to turn to crime!

No, it's the godless Commifornia politicians and the "woke" defund-the-police mob who are to blame!

No, it's the scamdemic lockdowns that caused people to forget basic civility!

No, it's the illegal immigrants!

No, it's an organized conspiracy of retail workers!

etc.

Of course, there are grains of truth in all of these explanations, but none of them get to the real heart of the matter. So, what's really behind this explosion in retail theft? And, more to the point, what do the powers-that-shouldn't-be have in store as their "solution" to this (generated) problem? The answers may surprise you.

Although the reality of a surge in shoplifting is disputed by some, it's getting harder to deny that dramatic acts of retail theft are becoming more commonplace in this era of the Brave New Normal.


Just ask retailers in California, where increasingly audacious acts of looting and pillaging are being committed by groups of thieves—and, in some cases, even organized flash mobs—on a daily basis.

And the robbers aren't just targeting luxury retailers (though they certainly are targeting them), they're also going after mom-and-pop stores and local, family-owned businesses, too.

And it's not just soft-on-crime California where burglary is out of control. Similar surges in retail theft are being seen in Seattle and New York and Portland and Chicago and Washington, D.C.

And it's not just a problem in the US. Shoplifting is up in Canada and Ireland and the UK and even the Netherlands.

Heck, shoplifting has gotten so bad in jolly ol' England that upscale supermarket chain Waitrose is now offering free coffee to police officers in a ploy to boost law enforcement's presence at their stores.


So, what on earth is going on here? There are as many explanations for this seemingly global crime spree as there are talking heads and op ed writers.

Broadly speaking, commentators on the left blame the problem on systemic issues, from corporate greed and surging inflation to systemic poverty and oppressive capitalism.

Commentators on the right, meanwhile, pin the blame on progressive legislators' decision to essentially decriminalize shoplifting and on law enforcement's inability to establish law and order in the face of increasingly hostile anti-police sentiment.

As usual, there is an element of truth to all of these claims. But none of these factors are so fundamentally different than they were a few years ago as to account for such a surge in retail theft. Surely there must be something bigger going on here, right?

Of course there is.

One interesting part of this shoplifting pandemonium that is only beginning to get attention is that retailers themselves seem to be adding to the problem. You see, not only is California's Senate looking to pass legislation to stop employees from confronting shoplifters, but more and more companies are now adopting an official policy expressly forbidding their employees from intervening in the event of retail theft, no matter how blatant. Indeed, this past summer, Lowe's and Lululemon both made headlines for firing employees who tried to confront shoplifters. And just last month a Colorado supermarket employee was fired for merely filming a shoplifter in the act (an action for which he was commended by local police).

At the surface level, it's no surprise that big corporations and box store retailers would implement a no-confrontation policy. They're worried about the legal liability they may have if an employee/shoplifter confrontation ends in injury or death. But there's an even more fundamental question we have to ask if we want to know why corporations are firing their own employees even as they're losing billions of dollars or why legislators are working to decriminalize shoplifting even as retail theft explodes or why the establishment media are effectively advertising to would-be thieves that they will not be prosecuted or even confronted no matter how blatant their criminality. And that question is: cui bono?

If you're a regular person, you might wonder how corporations or politicians or law enforcement could possibly benefit from increased shoplifting. If nothing else, it's a drain on the economy, isn't it? And, if unchecked, it could embolden criminals to escalate their actions into the realm of aggravated robbery and violent crime, couldn't it?


How could anyone possibly benefit from this criminality?

But let's imagine for a moment that you're not a regular, psychologically stable, law-abiding citizen. Let's imagine instead that you're a psychopathic eugenicist hell-bent on bringing in a technocratic police state, one in which you have total control of the economy and every transaction taking place within it. In that case, your agenda might be very different from that of the average person.

You may, for example, be an online business owner who wants to put regular, brick-and-mortar retailers out of business altogether.

Or you may be a technocrat looking for ways to get the public to accept increased biometric surveillance of their activities and to condition them into presenting their digital ID during every transaction.

Or you may be a central bankster hoping to get Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom to embrace the new cashless economy that you're planning to foist on them.

And if that's the case, then, boy, is a surge in shoplifting (or even the perception of such a surge) just the solution for you!

After all, what "anti-theft" measures are being implemented on the back of this retail crime wave?
Well, retailers are increasingly deciding to lock up their products, effectively treating shoppers as criminals-until-proven-otherwise and putting a further inconvenience in their shopping experience.

And, as a result, frustrated shoppers are turning their backs on brick-and-mortar businesses and vowing to buy everything on Amazon. (Or, more cynically, characters that may or may not be completely fictional are posting TikTok videos saying that they're turning their backs on brick-and-mortar business and vowing to buy everything on Amazon and getting plenty of tabloid press coverage for doing so.)

Other stores are using the shoplifting scare as cover for putting up biometric scanners (for the purpose of identifying repeat shoplifters, you understand).

And yet others are using the threat of thieves as an excuse to expedite their cashless payment agenda, preparing the public for the future (or is that the present?) in which you'll have to download an app or scan your palm print in order to enter a store and all the items you leave with will be automatically charged to your account.

Yes, as usual, the real action in this unfolding drama is in the reaction. Whether the problem of retail theft is authentic or completely synthetic, whether it's a natural phenomenon or part of a grand conspiracy, whether it's actually happening or just made-up media hype is beside the point. The point is that once you feel the problem to be real, the would-be social engineers know that they can present their pre-arranged "solution" to this problem to a terrified public and the majority will go along with it.

"Of course we need to fingerprint and iris scan to shop in the real world these days. And of course we can't use cash to make our purchases anymore. How else could we possibly solve the shoplifting crisis?!"

THE REAL SOLUTION

So, assuming we don't want to go down the technocrats' pre-determined route of increasing surveillance and cashless technology to "solve" the shoplifting crisis, what can we actually do?

One of the simplest things to note about the most brazen acts of organized shoplifting is that there is a common denominator to these events: they all take place in large urban areas. You don't see flash mobs of dozens of people looting the local luxury retailer in Smalltown, Nowheresville, if only because such rural communities don't tend to have luxury retailers. So, on the personal level, taking a cue from Jason Aldean's recent surprise number one hit song, perhaps one way to insulate yourself from this problem is to relocate out of the big cities.

But on a broader level, we can (as usual) take our cue about which direction we should be heading in by simply doing the exact opposite of what the Powers That Shouldn't Be want us to do.

So, if they want us to shun brick-and-mortar retail in favour of online shopping, we should be supporting the brick-and-mortar stores!

If they want us to submit to giving up our palm prints or downloading an app in order to enter their stores, we should boycott the stores that implement such systems.

If they want to reduce the shopping experience down to the most depersonalized, computerized, soulless interaction possible—complete with locked-down products and cashless payments and workerless stores—then we should be striving to create and support the vibrant, human, face-to-face interactions of the agora.

My readers will already know what this peer-to-peer economy entails: people transacting in cash or survival currencies in the free market, supporting local growers in REKO rings and farm shares, getting to know local businesses and choosing to support sellers who have shown that they will stand up against the authoritarians.

And you will already know how to do this: by meeting like-minded people, building community with them and engaging in buycotts to direct your resources (be that in the form of cash or complementary or alternative currency or precious metals or decentralized currency) toward those businesses you wish to support.

This is what the technocrats fear the most: that, rather than panicking and looking to governments and technocrats to "protect us" from the bad guys by treating us all as prisoners and locking down society with their technology of enslavement, we will take matters into our own hands, eschew the big corporations and government, and create (and police) our own marketplace of free human beings.

We know what we need to be doing, so what are we waiting for? Let's go out there and do it.

Quote:August 29, 2023

German aerospace company POLARIS Raumflugzeuge is advancing in its ambitions to produce disruptive aerospace technologies with a recent series of test flight demonstrations in advance of the development of AURORA, the company’s next-generation spaceplane concept with a name already familiar to longtime aviation enthusiasts.

Drawing from more than three decades of combined German and European aerospace research, the company’s focus mainly involves the development of reusable space launch capabilities and the production of a versatile hypersonic transport system capable of maintaining the ability to operate like a traditional aircraft.

In recent months, successful test flights involving demonstrator aircraft have allowed POLARIS to validate several crucial technologies, and the company is now approaching the development of a new demonstrator craft that will represent the final test before it begins production of its ambitious next-generation spaceplane.

Aurora: The Spaceplane of Tomorrow

AURORA, an innovative spaceplane design that combines the rocket launch capabilities the company is currently testing with traditional air flight modes, has its origins in early innovations that began at the German Aerospace Center DLR. The result, the company says, is a vehicle with a design unlike any other, which POLARIS says will provide an economical means of access to space in the years ahead.

Among its key benefits, AURORA will offer worldwide space launch capabilities without any need for a launch pad, as the spaceplane’s aircraft-like operation allows it to take off from any traditional runway. Eliminating the need for a launch pad also greatly reduces fuel costs associated with traditional rocket-driven spaceflight.



AURORA will be capable of carrying payloads greater than 2200 pounds (1000 kg) in orbit, and roughly ten times that amount for suborbital/hypersonic flight. In keeping with the company’s objectives to develop sustainable aerospace technologies, AURORA is also designed with close to 100% system reusability.

Defense, Research, and Beyond

With its versatility and sustainable design, POLARIS expects that its spaceplane will be equipped to meet the demands of a variety of markets, enabling satellite and orbital cargo launch operations with relative ease and significantly reducing flight times, enabling swift, economical delivery of payloads across great distances in record time.

However, its defense and research applications are evident, as AURORA will be capable of reaching any orbit inclination and is already being touted as a potential solution for hypersonic reconnaissance and a variety of other defense applications.

While AURORA will be designed to function as an unmanned aircraft, POLARIS says it will offer an optional upgrade of its spaceplane that will facilitate human transport, enabling flights capable of carrying passengers for research and training purposes and a range of other potential spaceflight missions.

The Mystique of the Fabled Aurora

The aircraft’s name seems to be no accident, either. In the 1990s, AURORA had been the alleged name of an aerospace development project aiming to build the successor aircraft to the famous SR-71.

In fact, as early as January 1979, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported rumors about the development of a “Mach 4, 200,000-ft.-altitude aircraft that could be a follow-on to the Lockheed SR-71 strategic reconnaissance vehicle in the 1990s,” which it reported “has been defined by the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division and Lockheed.”

Efforts to determine whether such a spacecraft had indeed ever been developed continued for years, prompting the Federation of American Scientists to investigate “observations of mysterious aerial phenomena” which began to be “connected with the 1988 reports that Aurora was a Mach 6 stealthy reconnaissance aircraft that was being developed to replace the SR-71.”

Ultimately, it was never determined whether such an unacknowledged aircraft truly existed. Kelly Johnson, who developed both the SR-71 and its predecessor, the U-2, during his time with Lockheed, later said the name “Aurora” had been the code name for funding of an Air Force black program which later leaked during congressional appropriations hearings, prompting the media to presume it involved a secret hypersonic aircraft.

“Although I expect few in the media to believe me,” Johnson later wrote, “there is no code name for the hypersonic plane, because it simply doesn’t exist.”

While Johnson maintained the U.S. had never successfully developed a hypersonic successor to the SR-71, not surprisingly, invocation of the fabled aircraft’s name has been seen again and again by various agencies and aerospace companies in recent years.

Now, perhaps by the end of the decade, POLARIS appears to be the latest company poised to bring its version of AURORA out of the shadows of modern space-age mythology and into reality.

Technology Validation and the Path to Aurora

POLARIS has announced that it expects to begin flight with its light spaceplane by as early as 2026, with a heavy vehicle that will become operational by the early 2030s.

In advance of AURORA’s development, the company has undertaken technology validation with the production of several scaled flight demonstrators.

Earlier this month, POLARIS announced that it had commenced initial tests with its MIRA-Light demonstrator, a smaller version of its full-scale MIRA aircraft, which it plans to begin testing before the end of the year.

At roughly half the size of MIRA, the MIRA-Light vehicle measures roughly 2.5 meters in length, and with the company’s successful flight of its full-scale MIRA demonstrator later this year, the company hopes to showcase its linear aerospike rocket design, a novel variety of engines that boast significant performance capabilities exceeding those of traditional rocket engines.

Study contracts for tests that include in-flight ignition and operation were awarded to the company in April. In August, POLARIS received approval for temporary restricted airspace test flights over the Baltic Sea that are expected to begin in September.

Before it commences production on the spaceplane, in the months ahead, the company will be launching its fifth demonstrator, NOVA, as the final test of its innovative flight capabilities prior to production of AURORA.


Powered by four kerosene-fed jet turbines and a single liquid fuel rocket engine, POLARIS says the focus of the DEMO-5 NOVA flight will be “the demonstration of safe and repeatable rocket-powered supersonic flight capability at high altitudes, while fulfilling the full regulatory framework required for airport-based operation.”



NOVA is expected to be developed and flown sometime next year, with AURORA entering its production stage thereafter in 2026.

The company’s ambitions don’t stop with AURORA, however. By the early 2030s, POLARIS hopes it will be positioned to begin development of the ultimate expression of its current technological vision: a reusable heavy orbital spaceplane, which the company says will be a step toward making fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) space vehicles one closer to becoming a reality.

You can learn more about POLARIS and the AURORA spaceplane, in addition to seeing imagery from several recent test flights of its current demonstrator aircraft at the company’s official website.

Quote:The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) has selected Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to design and possibly build a potentially game-changing X-plane. Part of the agency’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effecters (CRANE) program, the revolutionary X-plane would employ Active Flow Control (AFC) instead of conventional control surfaces to maneuver the craft at ultra-fast speeds.

If successful, the new X-plane could completely change the way high-speed aircraft fly by combining the simplicity and stability of AFC to improve overall reliability and performance while offering a lower radar cross-section.



If all goes to plan, those first flights will take place in 2025.

"... Mr. Epstein... Calling Mr. Epstein, Pick Up The White Telephone Please"

Quote:Elon Musk's dad reveals he was asked to 'donate his sperm' as 'man who created Elon'

Errol Musk, who is 77 years old, claims a company in Colombia approached him and
asked him to donate his sperm in order to impregnate high-class Colombian women

'Elon Musk's father has revealed that he was asked by a company to donate his sperm as he is the man
who "created" Elon. Errol Musk, 77, claims that a company in Colombia approached him and asked him
to donate his sperm in order to impregnate high-class Colombian women.


Errol                                                                                          Elon

The 77-year-old argues that the incentive behind this is to get Elon's DNA, while by-passing the Tesla
CEO, instead opting to use his father's sperm instead. He previously told the Sun: "I've got a company
in Colombia who want me to donate sperm to impregnate high-class Colombian women because they
say, ‘Why go to Elon when they can go to the actual person who created Elon'."

When asked if he had been offered money in exchange for becoming a sperm donor, Errol clarified that
he hadn't, and revealed that the company offered him gifts such as first-class travel and five-star hotels
instead. In response to the possibility of accepting the offer, he replied: "Well, why not?"

Errol also added that he would like to have more children, despite his advanced age, claiming that, "the
only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce". He stated: "If I could have another child, I would. I can't
see any reason not to."...'

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Rise of the machines... The DoD's 'Replicator' program (the mass production of low-cost AI-fueled drones to offset China's numerical superiority), announced yesterday, might be more of a turning point in modern governance than warfare.

Quote:The Pentagon has unveiled its latest strategy to counter China’s rapid military progress, with a program named Replicator that intends to focus on fielding “thousands” of attritable  autonomous platforms that will be characterized by being “small, smart, cheap, and many.” The initiative seeks to harness U.S. innovation as a way to counter the mass of China’s armed forces, while also, once again, putting the onus on uncrewed systems that will benefit from AI algorithms.

The Replicator program was announced today by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies conference in Washington.

As to the threat that Replicator is meant to overcome, Hicks was explicit about what she described as “the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass: more ships, more missiles, more people.” Hicks also identified the particular challenge posed by China’s rapidly diversifying anti-access/area-denial capabilities. 

She added that there is a historical precedent for the kind of approach that Replicator espouses: “Even when we mobilize our economy and manufacturing base, rarely have America’s war-winning strategies relied solely on matching an adversary, ship for ship or shot for shot,” she said, before adding a barbed comment that seemed to refer to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine: “After all, we don’t use our people as cannon fodder like some competitors do.”

In contrast, Replicator is intended to continue and build upon the U.S. ability to “outmatch adversaries by out-thinking, out-strategizing, and outmaneuvering them; we augment manufacturing and mobilization with our real comparative advantage, which is the innovation and spirit of our people.”

So, what will Replicator consist of once it becomes a reality?

Here, Hicks provided few details, other than to explain that the program seeks to “master the technology of tomorrow,” namely, “attritable autonomous systems in all domains.” The advantages of these kinds of platforms include that they are “less expensive, put fewer people in the line of fire, and [they] can be changed, updated, or improved with substantially shorter lead times. We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”

Attritable, in this context, is normally taken to refer to a platform that’s inexpensive enough to be willing to lose on high-risk missions, while being capable enough to be relevant for those missions. More recently, however, the Air Force began to use the term “affordable mass,” on the basis that attritable suggests a greater willingness to actually lose these systems, which might not necessarily be the case in an operational scenario. There are other definitions of attritable, too, which you can read more about here. In the case of Replicator, it’s really not yet possible to get an ideas of what these platforms might cost, but, clearly, affordability, rapid iterative development cycles, and the possibility of mass production are all considerations at this stage.

In terms of autonomous systems, Hicks said that Replicator will be “developed and fielded in line with our responsible and ethical approach to AI and autonomous systems, where the DoD has been a world leader for over a decade.”

As we have explored in the past, the U.S. military has been working on developing autonomous capabilities for decades now publicly, and there has certainly been significant work done in the classified realm, too.

Hicks’ reference to a “responsible and ethical approach to AI” suggests that Replicator may still include humans ‘in the loop,’ especially when it comes to certain sensitive tasks, above all, decisions about whether or not to employ lethal force. In this respect, it’s widely assumed that China, in particular, takes a somewhat different approach, something that Hicks apparently referred to, when she described “another comparative advantage we have over the PRC,” namely, that “these systems will empower our warfighters — not overpower or undercut their abilities.”

Hicks brought up the example of the war in Ukraine to show how “emerging tech developed by commercial and non-traditional companies” can be “decisive in defending against modern military aggression.” Specifically, she pointed to Starlink satellite internet constellation, Switchblade loitering munition, and the use of commercial satellite imagery to influence the conflict.

The kinds of commercial and rapidly developed drones that Ukraine has used to great effect for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance, as well as targeting and attack, may provide one pointer to the sorts of systems that Replicator may yield, but the program is altogether much wider.

While the development of attritable and autonomous systems has often frequently been in the air warfare domain, Hicks was keen to point out that the same concepts have already been subject to Pentagon investment through all the military services, the Defense Innovation Unit, the Strategic Capabilities Office, and at the level of the different combatant commands themselves. 

The development of attritable and autonomous systems already spans multiple domains, from “self-piloted ships to uncrewed aircraft and more,” and the same will be and the same will be the case for Replicator.

As well as bringing down costs, Hicks observed that the attritable concept also offers the significant benefit of allowing systems to be “produced closer to the tactical edge.” Such systems can be brought into battle faster than traditional defense technologies and once fielded, they can be used in more unorthodox ways, including outside the normal mission command chains, meaning that they can “empower the lowest possible echelons to innovate and succeed in the battle.”

Hicks also brought up another interesting function of Replicator’s attritable and autonomous systems, namely that they should have the ability to “serve as resilient distributed systems even if bandwidth is limited, intermittent, degraded, or denied.”

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Replicator is the speed and size envisaged, with Hicks outlining the goal of fielding attritable and autonomous systems “at a scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months.” She admitted that this is “easier said than done,” and it’s one that will apparently require an altogether new approach to harnessing industry, almost certainly including non-traditional companies, for the benefit of the Pentagon.

In the past, the Air Force, in particular, has looked to so-called ‘digital engineering’ to help rapidly develop new aircraft that can be brought into production on an interactive basis. More recently, there have been suggestions that the concept isn’t likely to be so revolutionary in reality, with even the Air Force’s own boss, Frank Kendall, concluding that the digital engineering processes has been “over-hyped.” For Replicator, the Pentagon may have to look to other routes for rapidly developing and fielding new platforms.



Exactly what the kinds of systems that Replicator should produce will look like, and the particular missions they undertake, remains very much speculative at this point. However, Hicks emphasized the fact that these attritable and autonomous systems are not simply expected to supersede current systems overnight, but instead herald a longer-term shift in the way that the Pentagon prepares for and goes to war.

Hicks painted a picture of the future U.S. military as one in which “Americans still benefit from platforms that are large, exquisite, expensive, and few.” However, Replicator will “galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many,” with these also operating for benefit of, if not collaboratively with more expensive and less prolific systems. This is very much defines the Air Force and Navy's Next Generation Air Dominance efforts. In particular, the dichotomy between the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones that will accompany the extremely high-end manned NGAD aircraft into combat.

Hicks hopes that Replicator is the program that finally tilts the balance in favor of this kind of warfare. With extremely ambitious targets as regards the volume and velocity of the program, that may be very hard to achieve, especially since attritable and autonomous systems already present plenty of operational challenges, even without the accelerated timeline. 

And while details of the kinds of systems that Replicator is expected to produce are still to come, the program is already highly noteworthy, not least for the very central position given to the challenge posed by China’s growing military dominance in the Asia Pacific region and, in the future, likely elsewhere, too.

We can reasonably expect unmanned systems in the air, on the water, and below the waves of varying capabilities and complexities, none of which will be too 'exquisite' that it makes their development a long-term proposition or their price tag very high. But above all that, grand networking capabilities that can tie many of these systems together and keep controllers apprised of their activities will likely be the biggest challenge when it comes to operationalizing what Replicator produces to its full potential. The possibility for mesh networks spanning multiple domains over great area is likely also a critical aspect of this endeavor.

AI will not just be needed for autonomy, but also for parsing absolutely massive amounts of data produced by these systems which can quickly clog critical communications bandwidth 'pipes.' Parsing that data on-platform or at least in-theater before it is sent afar will be a major challenge and feature of any such concept. But above all else, the ability for disparate capabilities to collaborate autonomously in a diverse 'swarm or swarms' will be arguably the most impactful aspect of this emerging strategy. Overwhelming the enemy by volume and speed of action is definitely the critical play here.

Bottom line, this is a very big deal and not just in scope. This is a major part of the unmanned shift we have long been waiting for and predicting now coming into focus. It goes far beyond just near-term tactical and procurement changes. If it is realized as discussed, it will forever change the way the U.S. military fights and how it develops and procures weaponry.

As for the timing, two years from now puts the fielding of these assets at the heart of the time frame in which many are predicting China will make a move on Taiwan militarily. As such, Replicator could end up being as much a deterrence play as anything else. It's worth noting, that war gaming has shown that massive swarms of autonomous systems would be a decisive factor as to who wins a fight over the Taiwan Strait. You can read more about this here.

“We must ensure the PRC leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression and concludes today is not the day and not just today,” said Hicks. Time will tell to what degree Replicator is successful in helping achieve that.

I used to LOVE swimming in the ocean.  I was that dumb kid who wanted to see how far out I could swim, and I'd have lifeguards blowing their whistles for I don't know how long, telling me to come in.  I remember one particularly livid lifeguard, and I in my young ignorant asshole way said, "what's the matter, can't you swim?" I can't remember if she was red from sunburn or rage   

I don't do that shit anymore.  Absolutely no way.  The swimming, I mean.  We went to North Carolina one year for vacation, somewhere around the year 2000 I think, I was about 15 then.  We were near the Cape Hatteras area.  I loved it, to this day it's my favorite beach spot.  My parents rented a big beach house with my aunt and uncle, grandparents, and my cousins, who are close to my age.

It felt sort of isolated there, we had so much room.  It was a breath of fresh air from those cramped beaches in Jersey.  We were fishing a lot, I couldn't believe how many croakers we caught, and how my poor grandmom had to bread and fry all of them.  They were delicious, almost slightly sweet.  It felt so cool to eat what we caught.

Other times it was me, my sister, and my two cousins boogie-boarding.  The waves were excellent.  That beach was a bit odd, as it has a courser, gravelly sand, and had a significant drop off.  Ten feet out, you might have been up to your waist in the water, a few more steps, and the water was over your head.  That made for some interesting boogie-boarding, as sometimes the water would drop out from under you and flip you over into an inch of water and sand.  That left a nice abrasion on my back, but it was so much fun.

The other thing I loved was the fact there were no lifeguards there.  I thought, awesome, I'll swim out as far as I damn well please.  My dad can't swim, yet I begged him to come out and boogie board.  He did, and we got caught in a rip current, of course.  I had to swim myself, and my dad on my boogie board, parallel with the beach for what felt like 100 yards and an hour, but we made it in.  He never went back in the water 

So it was an adventurous time there, we left and went home.  A week or two later, a woman and her husband were attacked by a bull shark not 100 yards from where I was swimming, much closer to shore, in waist-deep water.  It killed him, and the woman was bitten badly.  I think her foot or leg was bitten off.  

I never swam out deep again after that.  I've always been an animal nerd, and even at the time knew much about sharks, but I had that young mentality of "that only happens to other people."

To this day, when I think about what I used to do in the water, I cringe and my hair stands up.  You're simply no longer at the top of the food chain the instant you're in waist-deep water.  Has anyone seen the tiger shark attack in Egypt?  It was horrific, the worst shark attack footage I've ever seen.  Plenty of tigers in North Carolina too.

This is the footage, and again, it is horrible.  The man died, they caught the shark, and found numerous body parts inside it's stomach.  



And for those reasons, Schmoe no longer goes beyond knee-deep water.  I don't even miss it.

I've always been on the fence with this Remote Viewing stuff (some say it's "stage magic" while others claim it's real and really does work), but nevertheless it's a fascinating topic despite it recently (re)-gaining popularity in the UFO/UAP crowd. Another one of those occult science rabbit holes?

Former military RV'er Lyn Buchanan: "I often make this mistake at the level I was in in the Gov't, the common Joe on the street does not have that level of information."

Quote from "Advances in Remote Viewing with Lyn Buchanan" from New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove. Youtube clip from yesterday's interview. (I did not listen to the whole vid)

I found this other recent interview on a shadow banned channel with Lyn to be quite fascinating...the 90 minutes flew by and found myself wanting more purely out of curiosity.

Lyn Buchanan interview | TRANS-TEMPORAL COSMIC VISION IN REMOTE VIEWING




Lyn Buchanan: "Controlled Remote Viewing is a highly organized set of physical/mental protocols which allow a person to bring knowledge that lies hidden within the subconscious mind to the surface, and report it. It is often called the "Martial art of the mind". The protocols also keep the information "clean" of pollution from the imagination, emotions, desires, fears, and other contaminants which lie closer to the surface of a person's conscious awareness, and which would tend to "color" them incorrectly."

On the flip-side when you make a livelihood out of the paranormal psyche and decide to take the Youtube tour to promote your business you're going to say intriguing good things about it. I do respect the old timer, but I'll remain skeptical since my knowledge base in it is relatively shallow.

His website: PSI - Problems-Solutions-Innovations (Browse the "Free Resources")

His newer site Remote View Ranch - A spiritual haven for remote viewers to learn, work together and explore the universe. My initial thought on the "Ranch" took me back to Jacques Vallée's "Invisible College".

The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered about UFO Influences on the Human Race (1975) by Jacques Vallée. Chapt 9: The Control System, under the header "The Conditioning of Homo Sapiens" we read:



Archive.org link to Jacques F. Vallée The Invisible College What A Group Of Scientists Has Discovered About UFO Influence On The Human Race