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Monday’s Forum
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20 responses to “Monday’s Forum”
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Military recruiting hit a 15-year high.
All five active-duty military services met or exceeded their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals, according to the Department of Defense, marking what Pentagon officials described as the strongest recruiting performance in 15 years.
Although the article discusses the road to military readiness amongst the individual recruits, my question is what is the reason behind the good recruiting numbers? Is it, as this administration will crow, a surge of patriotic spirit? Or is it a more traditional indicator: the lack of job opportunities for the under 30 set?
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Another drone story.
South Korea to train half a million military personnel to become ‘drone warriors’
All of South Korea’s military forces will be trained as drone operators in a sweeping overhaul of its warfare strategy, the defence minister has said.
“All soldiers should be able to use drones like a second personal firearm,” Ahn Gyu-back, who heads the defence ministry in Seoul, said on Friday.
The plan envisages training 500,000 authorised military personnel across the army, navy, air force and marines to become “drone warriors”, the ministry said.
Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East had shown that drones were now a “gamechanger on the battlefield”, Ahn said.
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What could go wrong?
Agentic-AI tool aims to give US commanders new target options ‘within seconds’
A new agentic-AI tool will continuously scan intelligence feeds and operational networks to provide U.S. military commanders with targeting options “within seconds,” the Pentagon announced Thursday.
Dubbed Agent Network, the new tool will employ “agents”—artificial-intelligence entities that perform tasks on behalf of a user, such as running a scheduled search or executing an email campaign—to “continuously scan defense intelligence and operational systems, translating findings into clearly presented options,” said a press release, which added: “Agent Network does not autonomously select or strike targets; it ensures commanders remain in charge of every decision.”
It is one of seven “pace-setting” projects originally unveiled in January along with a new Pentagon AI strategy. Key contractors in the Agent Network effort include Lumbra and Palantir, which already handles much targeting analysis through its Maven Smart Systems contract.
“It ensures commanders remain in charge of every decision.”
But as a matter of human factors, faster information will push humans to make faster decisions. But not necessarily better decision.
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@Scott:
what is the reason behind the good recruiting numbers?
Same thing behind Trump’s best-ever inauguration attendance numbers according to himself?
It’s very sad, the conspiratorial erosion of trust. But there’s no good reason to automatically believe any numbers from this regime, given its nonstop pathological lying. And that goes double for anything in Hegseth’s portfolio.
Americans now have to wait for independent confirmation, both to verify and to explain. Sad.
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@Scott:
The job market, as you point out, and any number of other factors are behind the recruiting numbers.
-A “15-year high” means the numbers were higher 15 years earlier, when the U.S. population was ~10% lower.
-FY25 is the period from 1 Oct 2024 to 30 Sep 2025.
-Years after FY19 are pandemic recovery years.
-Recruitment involves planning and programs. According to a PBS article from Jan 17 2025 (end of previous admin),The Army expects to meet its enlistment goals for 2025, marking a dramatic turnaround for a service that has struggled for several years to bring in enough young people and has undergone a major overhaul of its recruiting programs.
-And so on.
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I remember the 1976 US bicentennial celebration. It was exciting and popular. The tall sailing ships in New York harbor were amazing. Jerry Ford did not make it into a Jerry Ford celebration. The 250th seems like a dud so far. Is this because Ford is a better organizer than Trump or more popular? Based on the reflecting pool event, I think Ford was a better administrator.
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@Scott: The “gig economy” sucks, and, like I was, are some certainly some who would like their college education paid for by someone else. The cost is more ridiculous than ever for that.
The times are getting tougher for the young men seeking to join the job market with only a HS education, and recruiting nearly always picks up when times are tough.
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@Slugger:
@CSK:
CSK is correct.
I graduated from HS in ‘76. My 50th HS reunion was last week.
I remember the Bicentennial pretty clearly. Saw the tall ships in Boston. All the major sports leagues had their all-star games in Philly.
The patriotic fervor was amazing.
Mailboxes and fire hydrants were painted red white and blue.
Now Fatso has hijacked the 250th for himself.
Fuck that fat bastard. -
I’d thought they were going to start this in July.
The Onion bid on the Infowars bankruptcy dale. the other bidder is a company that will then give it back to Jones and let him continue to poison the internet. The matter’s still tied up in court. But The Onion is running with using the Infowars logo and such, as satire.
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After eating turkey all of last week, I still had a great deal of unfrozen turkey left. So, I sauteed some onions and mushrooms, and mixed them all in a baking dish with turkey and gravy. I topped it with bread crumbs and parmesan, and popped it in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Air fried potatoes on the side.
I’ve got some turkey in the freezer, along with most of the turkey stock. Eventually I’ll make enchiladas with the meat and some of the stock.
On other news, El Taco finds it too boring to do something to help commoners afford a home.
But he loves the inflation. And never thinks about his citizens’ financial situation.
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@Jen:
It’s been a great day for Trump at Supreme Court, net-net. He now has unlimited control of the FCC, the FTC, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and so many move. All of them… except the Fed, for some reason. I’d love someone to ask Roberts why all the agencies are okey to be overseen by Trump, but not the Fed. The mental contortions to reach those two contradictory positions should be mind-blowing, but at this point… it’s not.
Unlimited control, and congress and the courts can’t do shit.
Every time I think we’ve hit bottom, we sink further. As I”ve said before, I’m purging Trump voters from my life because the damage they’ve done – TO THE WORLD – will probably never be reversed, regardless of what happens in 2026 and 2028.
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The mental contortions to reach those two contradictory positions should be mind-blowing, but at this point… it’s not.
Think of it in terms of what benefits the oligarchs who own the fixers in the court.
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@EddieInCA: That decision was horrible, and Sotomayor is correct, it will cause chaos.
However, Trump now has no additional recourse on the E. Jean Carroll case–he must pay her. And, he lost the mail-in ballot case, and no impacts to NYT v. Sullivan, which he’s bitched about for years. I’m sure he’s not happy this evening.
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@Daryl:
…hijacked the 250th for himself.
Right. The congressionally-created America250 has been coopted by his self-aggrandizing and boring Freedom 250, which has siphoned off the former organization’s funds and mixed them into an on-brand, corrupt public-private entity with murky financial reporting.
I won’t knowingly give a moment of my attention to anything branded Freedom 250, although I’ve had to open a couple of envelopes that arrived in the mail with postage stamps canceled by an ink stamp with the Freedom 250 logo. I mean, what in the name of Ben is that crap doing in an official Post Office function?
And the White House 250th stuff just sucks big time. It’s a reflection of his penchant for ruining anything good, with gaudiness replacing beauty, insults replacing humor, and so on.
Addendum: The Guardian has a piece today with the subhead,
Trump, laying siege to freedoms and truth itself, is twisting America’s milestone birthday into a joyless occasion
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