Crap! Cue the Fanbois.

NASA has pulled their former research SR-71A from display with the intent of reactivating the aircraft.

While I am sure that something interesting is happening here, I expect to be inundated by endless social media posts and videos from uninformed aviation geeks.

Mike Relja, a retiree in his late 70s, received an unexpected job offer from NASA about a month ago.

The assignment: Help put a former NASA-operated Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air after a nearly 27-year hiatus.

Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S. Navy and Joby test pilot who was hired in June as a special projects director for NASA, asked Relja to provide his expertise for a secret effort to return a long-retired and neglected Blackbird to flight.

“I told the guy, ‘You know, I’m too old to be doing this,’” Relja recalls to Aviation Week. “‘I wish you well. I’d like to see you make it. It would be interesting. But I just don’t think you can get there from here.’”

It appears NASA is going to try.

At some point early this year—certainly before May 17 and perhaps even before April, according to commercial satellite imagery acquired by Aviation Week—agency employees removed the SR-71A with Tail No. 844 from a display pole near the corners of Lilly and Walker Avenues at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, California.

I appreciate that NASA might have a need for the aircraft, my guess is launching of scramjet test vehicles, why couldn't they have they kept it a secret?

 

Remember When Flock Promised That It Would Not Add Facial Recognition?

Not so much.

A third party firm is offering facial recognition from Flock data.

I have no doubt that they are paying a kick-back to Flock for access to their data.

As Flock continues to be the center of a nationwide conversation about automatic license plate reading cameras, the company has said that it doesn’t, and won’t, do facial recognition: “We will not add facial recognition to our devices,” Flock CEO Garrett Langley said in a recent video. But other, third-party companies are telling cops that they are willing to add facial recognition to data gathered by Flock cameras in order to “close that gap.”

A company called VIDIZMO is advertising the capability to export footage from FlockOS to its own platforms that do facial recognition, behavior prediction, and racial and gender analysis on live camera feeds. VIDIZMO is a several decades-old video analysis and database company that has started offering facial recognition technology to cops within the last six months. In a May email to Johnson City, Tennessee, deputy police chief Michael Adams, a salesperson from VIDIZMO wrote that the company’s product could do facial recognition on both Flock and Axon data in “one searchable platform.”

“Flock Safety generates plate reads and clips continuously. Your investigators use that data on active cases. But that Flock data does not connect automatically to your Axon evidence system,” the salesperson wrote. “VIDIZMO Intelligence Hub closes that gap. It brings Flock Safety data, Axon body worn camera footage, and any other evidence source into one searchable platform. Investigators search across all of it simultaneously — by face, vehicle, or object in seconds.” The email was obtained using a public records request by DeFlock Johnson City and was shared with 404 Media. The Johnson City PD told 404 Media in a statement that it did not take a call with the company.

Gee, Flock lied.  What a surprise? 

First Friday of the Month

Unemployment rate

And the monthly jobs report is not great. 

Non farm payroll rose well under then natural growth rate of the workforce, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.1% to 4.2% while workforce participation rose marginally. 

The U.S. added just 29,000 jobs in September, a sign that the labor market may not be able to deliver the sizable gains that it did in the past—but doesn’t need to in order to keep the unemployment rate low.

The numbers

The jobs number, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of analysts’ expectations for an increase of 84,000 jobs. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%. That was higher than 4.1% the previous month but still at a historically low level that indicates the labor market remains generally healthy.

Monthly employment numbers can be volatile, so investors and policymakers tend to focus on the unemployment rate. 

Low hire, low fire

The 29,000 number will seem low to anyone who remembers the job gains that routinely topped 200,000 in the years before the pandemic—much less the massive job gains that came when the economy reopened from Covid-19.

But the economy doesn’t need to generate as many jobs as it used to just to keep the labor market steady. The population is aging, and an immigration clampdown has reduced growth in the supply of workers. 

In a positive sign, what is called the labor-force participation rate—the share of people working or looking for work—inched up slightly. “That all speaks to continued strength in the labor market,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide.

The job market remains in a low-hire, low-fire era that provides stability but can be frustrating for Americans used to more opportunity. That dynamic has made it harder for newcomers to break into the job market, or for those who have been laid off or seeking new jobs to find new roles.

And some of the other bits.

………

Stock investors cheered the report, with stocks up across a broad range of sectors. Investors also dialed back their expectations for a rate increase this month.

Still, the report lands amid a broad selloff in the bond market, and Treasury yields rose. They hit their highest level in 24 years earlier this week before retreating, while mortgage rates have surged above 7%. 

So, a bad jobs report is good news at the big casino on Wall Street.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

……… 

Jobs numbers for both July and August were revised down. Employers shed 10,000 jobs in July, down from a previous estimate of a gain of 21,000. August’s job gain was revised to 133,000, from 162,000. Combined, revisions trimmed 60,000 jobs from the previously estimated tally for July and August.

 So the numbers are even worse than they initially appear.

Headline of the Day

Pete Hegseth’s Big Speech Was Weirdest Village People Cover We’ve Ever Heard 

—Wonkette

I got nothing to add to this.

Support Your Local Police

A news organization has gotten a $2.5 million dollar bill from the Eugene, Oregon police department for a copy of records of just one rogue cop.

Can you say, "Blatantly illegal attempt to subvert the state Freedom of Information Act?

Good, I knew you could.

How much does it cost to get more information about a cop who punched someone in the face?

If you guessed anything lower than $2.5 million, you’d be wrong — at least according to the city of Eugene, Oregon.

In August, the local news outlet Double Sided Media filed a public records request for records about police officer Justin Peckels, which focused on potential misconduct between 2018 and 2026. Peckels has been the subject of community complaints, including for punching a resident in the face during a traffic stop, making the records vital for oversight and their release clearly in the public interest.

The city’s response is beyond belief. In its response to the request on Monday, the Eugene Police Department claimed searching for records and processing the request would take at least 44,816 hours of staff time and cost approximately $2,484,599.04. (A separate request by the outlet for similar records concerning a former police officer, Eric Klinko, was met with a comparatively modest estimate of $195,869.52, for a grand total of nearly $2.7 million for both requests.)

Needless to say, the Eugene PD needs to be given a metaphorical anti-corruption proctology exam with a metaphorical telephone pole.

He Never Fails to Disappoint

Once again, we have Gavin Newsom doing something reprehensible.

This time, it is vetoing a bill making secretly taping people with "pervert glasses" a crime.

I guess he wants campaign donations from Mark Zuckerberg for his Presidential campaign.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has used his veto authority to send a bill passed by the state’s legislature back to lawmakers, which would have made it unlawful to secretly record people with wearable recording devices.

Newsom said in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday that he declined to sign the draft law, California Senate Bill 1130, on grounds that it defines wearable recording devices as “too broadly or imprecisely” and that this could lead to confusion and unintended consequences. Newsom added that the proposed bill also includes protections that already exist in California’s law.

The bill would have made California the first state to regulate the use of smart glasses, as countries like Norway seek to potentially ban the technology. Had California’s law passed, violators could face fines or prison time, while wearable makers that did not comply with the rules would have also faced fines.

They Are Re-Litigating This?

Seriously, why is the Trump administration attempting to rehabilitate Richard M. Nixon?

We live in the worst timeline ever.

For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump. Now it is reaching back in history to consider whether prosecutors mistreated an earlier Republican president: Richard Nixon.

The department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.

Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist, recently gave a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck: “Watergate As Lawfare.”

The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy. Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.

F%$# Gerald Ford for pardoning that Cox Sacker Nixon. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, both initial and continuing unemployment claims fell, with initial claims hitting a 3 month low of 197,000.

New applications for US unemployment benefits drifted close to 57-year lows last week and layoffs decreased in September, suggesting labor market stability persisted even as employers remained cautious about boosting hiring.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday joined a raft ​of other data, including robust consumer spending in August, in painting a rosy picture of the economy despite rising headwinds from the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has driven diesel prices to record ‌highs. Economists said robust corporate profits growth and resilient domestic demand were shielding workers from layoffs, for now.

………

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for the week ended September 26, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims have held ​below the 200,000 level for three straight weeks and are near levels last seen in 1969. Some economists said historically low layoffs, if sustained, could raise questions about the labor market overheating, with monetary policy implications.

………

A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed layoffs announced by US-based employers dropped 18% to 43,281 in September. They were down 20% from a year ago ​and fell 43% in the third quarter. Employers are, however, in no rush to increase headcount.

Hiring plans increased by 90,787 last month. While that was sharply up from 12,325 in August, hiring intentions were down 23% from a year ago, and ​the tally was the lowest for any September since 2011. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said a surge in seasonal hiring typically seen starting in September was absent, adding that "companies are in a wait-and-see period."

………

But August's market-friendly inflation readings are unlikely to be sustained. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Thursday showed ​inflation pressures building up at the factory gate in September, with no commodities reported to have seen price declines. The survey's measure of input prices jumped to 77.9 last month from 71.1 in August.

Meanwhile, inflation and interest rate data are not looking good. 

US stocks recovered from early losses to close slightly higher on Thursday, with the ​S&P 500 bouncing from a two-week low as a global bond selloff reversed course after sending US Treasury yields to multi-decade highs.

Stocks were under pressure in ‌early trading as economic data kept pointing to a solid economy with persistent price pressures that stoked fears that inflation could ultimately force the Federal Reserve to become more aggressive with rate hikes. 

………

Treasury yields extended gains, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hit a 24-year high, after closing out September ​with its biggest quarterly gain since 1994, and pushed equities lower after the Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing PMI dipped ⁠to 54.5 last month from 54.6 in August and showed a jump in input prices, raising inflation worries.

………

But yields turned lower as buyers stepped in, ​and further declined after Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson suggested the central bank may be patient before hiking rates again, following a 25 basis point hike in September.

The two-year US ​Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Fed, dropped about 10 basis points and was poised for its biggest daily drop since August 2025.

………

Oil prices also kept stoking inflation worries. Brent crude settled up more than $4 a barrel after China suspended fuel exports, threatening to further tighten markets. The jump in crude prices helped boost the S&P 500 energy index, opens new tab 1.9% as the best performing of the 11 major S&P sectors. 

Damned if I know what the hell is going on here.