F-18

Did you see Top Gun: Maverick at a movie theater last weekend? Many people did. As noted in an Newsweek article by Samuel Spencer, over the weekend the movie “was number one in the box offices of all 30 countries that Box Office Mojo has public data for.” Here is something many Top Gun: Maverick viewers do not know. Involvement of the United States military in the development of the movie indicates that aspects of the move were crafted to satisfy US military demands, turning the movie into a mechanism for delivering US military propaganda.

The growing trade feud between the US and Canada escalated overnight when Ottawa announced it was scrapping a plan to buy 18 F-18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets amid a deepening dispute with the U.S. aerospace company, Reuters reported. In a snub to the US, Canada's Liberal government will instead announce that intends to acquire a used fleet of older Australia F-18 jets, the same kind of plane Canada currently operates.

North Korea swiftly quashed hopes for a détente with the US and its regional allies earlier this week when a government spokesman said there would be no sit-down between US and North Korean diplomats at a non-proliferation conference in Moscow this week.

Now that the North – presumably taking its ques from President Donald Trump who earlier this month ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s attempts at backchanneling – has refused to participate in talks, tensions between the two nuclear-armed powers have escalated to absurd new heights.

Another military jet, this time an F-18 fighter belonging to 12th Wing of the Spanish Air Force, crashed near the Torrejon military base outside Madrid on Tuesday, according to the Spanish Defense Ministry, killing the pilot in the second fatal accident involving a Spanish military jet in the past week. Five days ago, a Eurofighter jet suffered an unknown malfunction on its way back from participating in a military parade in honor of Spain’s Oct. 12 National Day. The jet crashed south of Madrid, killing pilot Borja Aybar, local press reported.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

This is the new model of nationalization: central banks control the valuation of private-sector assets without actually having to own them lock, stock and barrel.