September 17, 2026

VENERABLE: Lockheed hopes to sell a new F-16 to U.S. Air Force.

Lockheed Martin is pitching the U.S. Air Force on a new version of the F-16 fighter, designated the F-16G, as a way to replace aging Fighting Falcons faster than the F-35 production line can keep up.

Multiple people familiar with the aircraft told Aviation Week that the F-16G builds on the current Block 70 F-16, Lockheed’s newest production version, and would add conformal fuel tanks, 600-gallon wing tanks, an infrared search and track pod, a Sniper targeting pod and a drag chute. Those additions would extend the jet’s range and give it added sensor capability compared with earlier F-16 models still flying in Air Force squadrons.

The idea of buying new F-16s to fill out the fighter fleet is not new. Then-Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Will Roper raised the option back in 2021, pointing to the active F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina, as a way to add capacity while the F-35 program worked through its own delivery pace. Lockheed builds F-16s and F-35s at separate facilities, but the F-35’s more complex production process has left the Air Force short of new airframes to replace F-16s reaching the end of their service lives.

Why not? The heavily upgraded F-15EX Eagle II has proven to be a real winner, filling in the gaps of our unpardonably small F-22 fleet.

Posted at 5:53 pm by Stephen Green

INFLATION, GAS PRICES, AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA:

Posted at 5:24 pm by Stephen Green

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Trump ‘I did that’ stickers pop up on gas pumps, four years after Biden got the same treatment.

I’m so old, I can remember Obama’s soon-to-be energy secretary telling the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008 that “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” and the LA Times extolling “The joy of $8 gas.”

But then, I can also remember when candidate Bill Clinton savaged George H.W. Bush for raising taxes, after Clinton’s fellow Democrats begged Papa Bush to raise taxes.

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’ – ‘Red Dawn’ for Academia’s Insane Woke Culture.

If filmmakers won’t tackle the woke Left, Ben Shapiro’s team will step up via films like “Run Hide Fight: Infidels.”

The action thriller takes meaty swipes at:

Woke college administrators
Campus radicals
Wishy-washy deans
Triggered snowflakes
And, of course, the dangers of radical Islam

The latter is center stage with “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” a spiritual sequel to the superior 2020 film “Run Hide Fight.” Director Kyle Rankin returns to poke progressive Hollywood in the eye.

That’s the good news.

The film’s satirical formula falters after a spell, becoming a generic shoot ‘em up that doesn’t take full advantage of what came before it.

Sounds like a bit of a mixed bag. But it has all the right people’s panties wadded, so I look forward to seeing it.

Posted at 4:53 pm by Stephen Green

EMMY AWARDS’ AUDIENCE BECOMING INCREASINGLY MORE SELECTIVE: Emmys Ratings Fall as Awards Show Eyes End to Its Broadcast Era.

Monday’s Emmy Awards, aired Monday by NBC, posted a 9% decline in audience from the show’s 2025 viewership, marking what appears to be the end of the Emmys broadcast-network era.

According to Nielsen’s preliminary audience estimate, 6.7 million viewers watched the Emmys this year, down from the 7.4 million who tuned in last year.

While the viewership of awards shows has been treading downward in recent years, several factors complicate efforts to draw solid conclusions about the cause of this year’s drop in Emmys audience from 2025:

* * * * * * * *

If the Emmys do, indeed, move to Amazon, they will join other awards programs – such as the Oscars, SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards – who have signed deals to move to a streaming service.

One advantage of signing a multi-year deal with a single outlet is that the platform would have more incentive to promote the show, since doing so won’t benefit the competitor who gets the Emmys the next year.

So a streaming platform will be hosting an awards show dedicated to promoting network and cable TV shows? And note that the movie industry’s Academy Awards are moving to YouTube, the original streaming platform, in a couple of years as well: Failing Oscars Demoted to YouTube. “Starting in 2029, the irrelevant Oscars will have its annual irrelevant Academy Awards show broadcast on — lol — YouTube.”

As Steve wrote earlier today: Say Goodbye to Hollywood… If It Even Exists Anymore.

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

VDH: Iran, the Midterms, and October Surprises.

The theocracy is now vastly diminished after months of Israeli and American bombing and crushing new sanctions. Moreover, the desperate regime has continued to murder dissidents in the months since the failed uprising of January 2026.

In sum, the Iranian conflict is one of the strangest wars of the modern age.

The Iranian regime has suffered terrible material and financial damage.

Its nuclear program is likely in ruins, and its original command-and-control leadership has been destroyed.

The people detest it. The Kurdish minority loathes it. Conditions on the ground are dire, with terrible shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.

The resistance may sense that the Trump administration would double down on kinetic force to finish off the wounded regime if a mass popular uprising emerged and needed support from the air.

Taken together, these possible October surprises before the November midterms could make the next 50 days the most volatile in modern memory.

Trump could well be facing domestic warfare as well next year: Jeffries has not ‘ruled anything out’ on impeaching Trump if Democrats win.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The battlefield now extends all the way to the moon, U.S. military’s highest-ranking officer says.

“Today’s modern battlefield operates from the seabed to cislunar space,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday (Sept. 16) during a keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

Cislunar space extends from Earth all the way out to the orbit of the moon and includes the lunar surface. For several years now, military officials have been stressing the strategic importance of this huge region, which could get quite a bit busier in the next decade or so.

For example, both the United States and China plan to build bases near the moon’s south pole, which is thought to harbor large amounts of water ice. Winning this new moon race is critical, U.S. officials have stressed, because whoever does so will be able to establish norms of behavior on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor.

And as Robert Heinlein taught us, the Moon is the ultimate high ground.

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green

DON’T YOU LOVE A HAPPY ENDING? Orland Park, IL Gas Station Stickup Man Learns the Victim Gets a Vote, Too. “Police say the suspect approached the person at the pump to rob him. The CCL holder drew and shot the armed attacker. The would-be stickup artist left in an ambulance. The customer stayed and spend the rest of the morning as a witness rather than a victim.”

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

FASTER, PLEASE:

Posted at 2:40 pm by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: The Snail Darter and the Delta Smelt.

The New Hotness? Great crested newts could thwart Piddington migrant camp.

Great crested newts could scupper plans to build a camp near an Oxfordshire village to house as many as 1,256 asylum seekers.

Campaigners in Piddington, which voted to leave the UK in protest at the proposed camp, have unearthed records showing a plethora of protected wildlife next to and on its site.

In an apparent blunder, the Home Office’s ecological assessment of the area, submitted as part of its planning application, claimed that there was no evidence of protected newts, bats or reptiles.

Campaigners are claiming that unless the Home Office redoes its ecological assessment, and introduces protective measures possibly including moving the newts, it will be open to a legal challenge that could thwart the asylum camp.

The errors form the basis of a High Court challenge to the plans launched on Wednesday night.

Dr Claire Brenner, a resident with a zoology degree who uncovered the evidence, said: “If the Secretary of State determines this application with this materially incomplete information, that’s open to legal challenge.

“If they proceed to work on the site without a licence, then potentially it’s a wildlife crime.”

As one wag asked on X, “So let me get this straight… The Government care more about the safety of NEWTS than Women and Girls?”

Yes. Next question?

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll