Tuesday, February 3, 2026
USS Abraham Lincoln / F-35 Shoots Down Iranian Drone
(If I was the janitor over at the Shahed Drone Factory, I'd be calling in sick for the next week or so.)
The US military has shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.
The Iranian Shahed-139 aircraft was flying towards the carrier and was shot down by a F-35 US fighter jet, an American official confirmed on Tuesday.
A US Central Command spokesman said the drone 'aggressively approached' the Abraham Lincoln 'with unclear intent.'
The aircraft carrier was 'transiting the Arabian Sea approximately 500 miles from Iran's southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship,' the spokesman added.
Oil prices ticked higher after falling more than 4 percent on Monday amid hopes of a deal between Iran and the US. Brent Crude futures were up 1.24 percent.
Donald Trump warned that 'bad things would happen' but signaled he was hopeful Iran would come to the table on its nuclear program.
'We have ships heading to Iran right now, big ones - the biggest and the best - and we have talks going on with Iran and we'll see how it all works out,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
'If we can work something out, that would be great and if we can't, probably bad things would happen.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15524609/US-fighter-jets-shoots-Iranian-drone-approached-aircraft-career.html
Jill Biden's Ex-husband Accused Of Killing Wife In Delaware
After an investigation, authorities have accused former first lady Jill Biden's ex-husband of killing his current wife at their home in New Castle County, Delaware.
According to New Castle County Police, on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, at around 11:16 p.m., officers responded to a residence on the 1300 block of Idlewood Road in the community of Oak Hill after receiving a report about a domestic dispute.
When officers entered the home, police said they found 64-year-old Linda Stevenson unresponsive in the living room.
Police said officers immediately administered life-saving measures; however, despite their efforts, Linda Stevenson was later pronounced dead.
Following an extensive weeks-long investigation, on Monday, Linda's husband, 77-year-old William Stevenson, was charged with murder in the first degree.
Stevenson was found at his home on the 1300 block of Idlewood Road and taken into custody without incident, according to police.
Police shared that Stevenson was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to the Howard Young Correctional Institution after failing to post $500,000 cash bail.
A representative for former president Joe Biden and his wife Jill did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
Jill Biden married Bill Stevenson in February 1970, when she was 18 years old and a student at the University of Delaware, and he was 23, NBC News reported.
Jill and Bill Stevenson were only married for five years, because in March of 1975, she met a Delaware Senator named Joe Biden. A civil divorce between Jill and Bill Stevenson was granted in May of 1975.
I Hope This Is The Beginning Of The End ...
... to the surgical mutilation of our girls. I've posted that cartoon before but it went so well with this news.
Costa Rica: Conservative Laura Fernandez Wins Election
Laura Fernandez, a conservative, populist politician with strong links to outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves, has won nearly half of the votes in Costa Rica's general election with 94% of votes counted, meaning she will become the country's new leader.
Her victory confirms a strong rightward trend in Latin America, where voter anger at corruption and crime has driven recent conservative wins in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Honduras.
Fernandez had won 48.3% of the vote, the preliminary results from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) showed, far in excess of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off.
Fernandez's party, the Sovereign People's Party, is also projected to win a majority of 30 seats in the 57-seat Congress, up from its current eight seats.
The other main candidates in the election lagged far behind Fernandez, with economist Alvaro Ramos receiving about one third of the vote, and architect and former first lady Claudia Dobles taking under 5%.
Costa Rica, a country of some 5 million inhabitants, has so far had only one female president in its history, Laura Chinchilla, who served from 2010 to 2014.
Fernandez is a protege and former chief of staff to Chaves, and has vowed to keep on with his tough security policies, while including the widely popular former president in her government.
Under current Costa Rican law, Chaves is barred from seeking re-election until he has been out of power for eight years.
"Change will be deep and irreversible," Fernandez said during her victory speech, while declaring that under her, Costa Rica would enter a new political era.
"It's up to us to build the third republic," she told supporters, with the country's second republic following a civil war in 1948 "a thing of the past."
She vowed to "fight tirelessly" to ensure Costa Rica "continues on the path of economic growth, freedom, and above all, the progress of our people."
She has also promised to uphold the country's constitution, amid fears in some quarters that she could use her term in power to change rules on presidential mandates.
Foremost among her promises is a vow to crack down on rising violence and crime linked to the cocaine trade.
Although Costa Rica was long considered a model for stability and democracy in Central America, it has now become a central link in the global drug trade.
Its murder rate has climbed 50% in the past six years to 17 per 100,000 inhabitants amid turf wars by Mexican and Colombian cartels.
Fernandez' victory comes as polls show that the fight against crime topped the concerns of the country's 3.7 million eligible voters.
She has said she intends to emulate the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who has pursued a strategy of jailing thousands of suspected gang members without charge in a bid to reduce the crime rate.
Among other things, she has promised to complete construction of a maximum-security prison modeled on Bukele's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a facility notorious for the brutal treatment meted out to its inmates.
She has also promised to introduce harsher prison sentences and to impose a Bukele-style state of emergency in those areas with the most crime.
Monday, February 2, 2026
Random Political Social Media Posts - 2.2.2026
Cornfield Bomber
Tory Rich - July 8, 2021
The story of the “Cornfield Bomber,” an aircraft that landed without a pilot, might not sound very impressive in today’s age of drones and increased automation. The narrative changes drastically when one key piece of information is added: this happened in 1970, after the pilot was forced to eject from a jet he had lost control of.
The bizarre event, on February 2nd, 1970, to be precise, took place during a training sortie for the 71st Fighter Interceptor Squadron out of Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Three pilots in F-106 Delta Darts took to the sky for a two-on-one combat training exercise. A fourth was a last-minute scratch from the flight schedule after an equipment issue on the runway, leaving instructor pilot Captain Tom Curtis flying solo against fellow instructor pilot, Major James Lowe, and 1st Lieutenant Gary Foust (at the sticks of the “Cornfield Bomber”). Regardless of the hierarchy, bragging rights were at stake.
“Of course, this was a big ego thing, who was the winner…” said Curtis, whose recollection of the day is available at f-106deltadart.com.
Curtis goes on to detail what led to Foust needing to eject from his aircraft:
“I figured I could handle Gary pretty easy, but I did not trust Jimmy. I figured he would probably break off and come after me. With this thought in mind, I came at them in full afterburner. I was doing 1.9 Mach when we passed.
I took them straight up at about 38,000 feet. We got into a vertical rolling scissors. I gave [Gary] a high-G rudder reversal. He tried to stay with me, that’s when he lost it. He got into a post-stall gyration … a very violent maneuver. His recovery attempt was unsuccessful and the aircraft stalled and went into a flat spin, which is usually unrecoverable.”
Lt. Foust started running through emergency recovery procedures by the book, but the jet did not respond and continued to spin and plummet to the Earth. Maj. Lowe instructed him to deploy his drag chute, but it only wrapped uselessly around the tail. Out of options, Foust was finally instructed to eject at 15,000 feet. No one could have predicted what happened next.
When Foust ejected, the Delta Dart first went nose down, but then recovered on its own and resumed the straight and level flight Foust had been trying to achieve for about 23,000 feet. Lowe watched Foust eject, and then witnessed the unmanned F-106 take things from there, improbably flying itself away. Unfazed, Lowe still had time for humor, and quipped over the radio:
“Gary, you’d better get back in it!”
Of course, Foust had little choice but to watch, dumbfounded, as he floated safely to the ground in the mountains of Montana, to be later extracted by locals on snowmobiles.
“I had assumed it crashed,” he said years later in an interview at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (where the jet now sits). However, over fifty miles away as the crow (or Delta Dart) flies, the jet skidded on its belly to a safe landing in a field near a town called Big Sandy.
The high-performance interceptor hadn’t gone unnoticed on its approach through rural Montana. According to a 1978 article in the Mohawk Flyer (a local paper near Griffiss AFB in NY, where this particular jet had since been re-assigned), a local sheriff got in touch with the Air Force at Malmstrom and got instructions on how to throttle down the still-turning aircraft. The jet was melting the snow beneath it and still lurching slowly across the field. The understandably apprehensive sheriff decided to instead let the jet punch itself out and run out of fuel, which took another hour and 45 minutes.
Fortunately, bystanders had kept a safe distance from the unpredictable monstrosity that managed to crawl another 400 yards. The radar in its nosecone was still sweeping and would have been hazardous to anyone approaching the aircraft from the front, as well. When the dust (or snow) had settled, Foust’s wayward steed was no worse for the wear besides a gash in the belly. It was partially disassembled and transported by train to California, where it was repaired and eventually returned to service.
With the rise of the F-15, and as the Soviets began to focus more on inter-continental ballistic missiles over long-range bombers for nuclear deterrence, the F-106 was slowly phased out. Ironically, many were converted to the QF-106, an unmanned drone used for target practice. This bird, however, was not one of them. Tail number 58-0787 ended up as one of the jets at the 49th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, the Air Force’s last F-106 squadron, at Griffis AFB. As fate would have it, Foust would be stationed there, along with his wingman the day of the incident, James Lowe, who was now his squadron commander. Lowe, who apparently has a delightfully twisted sense of humor, saw to it that Foust was paired back up with his old aircraft.
How did the “Cornfield Bomber” land itself?
An unmanned jet flying itself to a safe landing, away from a populated area, and almost completely unharmed, is improbable, to be sure. It was more than just dumb luck, however. As theorized by Peter Grier in his Air Force Magazine article, the force of the rockets from Foust’s ejection seat, as well as the shift in the aircraft’s center of gravity from a now missing pilot, corrected the spin and set the aircraft back to what it was naturally shaped to do, take advantage of lift and fly.
As it turns out, the attempted recovery procedures carried out by Foust before he bailed out were significant in saving the aircraft. One of those measures was to “trim” the aircraft to take-off settings, which happen to be very similar to those for landing. Trim refers to automated settings that free the pilot from having to maintain constant pressure on the controls to keep flight surfaces (flaps, ailerons, etc.) in the correct position for a given phase of flight (ascent, descent, maintain altitude, etc.)
“When Gary ejected, the aircraft was trimmed wings-level for about 175 knots (200 mph), a very nice glide setting,” Curtis said in his account.
Another element of the jet’s salvation, as noted by Grier, may have been a concept in aeronautics known as “ground effect.” In short, ground effect is a change in aerodynamics as an aircraft gets closer to the ground. Because of the way air interacts with the aircraft’s wings as it nears landing, drag is decreased and lift is increased, causing an aircraft to “float,” which is a very plausible explanation for such little damage sustained in this case.
How A US Air Force Fighter Landed Itself After The Pilot Ejected
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/cornfield-bomber-the-us-air-force-jet-that-landed-itself/
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Yeah, I know this is fake BUT IT DOES realistically reflect the amount of faith that I think you should put in ANYONE of the Muslim 'fa... -
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