Here’s some service-y journalism for you, so you can enjoy everybody else screaming and otherwise going nuts after midnight, when Air Force fighter jets begin a two-night assault on Washington’s fragile psyche. “A pair of F-16 fighter jets are scheduled to make periodic passes over downtown Washington at relatively low altitudes early tomorrow and again in the predawn hours Wednesday as part of a military exercise,” the Washington Post reports just late enough in the day for nobody to hear the news. Luckily nobody ever freaks out when huge scary low-flying roaring jets just pointlessly scare the shit out of everybody in the middle of the night. [Washington Post]

Over Easter weekend while the rest of America was busy gaining 10 pounds eating ham and Peeps, President Obama occupied himself authorizing military action that left three Somali pirates dead and one kidnapped American captain alive. This feat of daring means that nobody can call Obama a pussy anymore. MORE »

Well, this is alarming! An Israeli arms company made a video about its wonderful relationship with the Indian military, and the end product is … sort of indescribable. Watchy watchy, if you hate your life/freedom/tasteful things. [Wired]

Oh here’s some big news: Barack Obama has officially declared defeat in Iraq! War is over and our troops are headed home in shame! Stay with us as our president explains how he is going to pull soldiers out of the Middle East, a little bit at a time, until at some point in the future we have mere tens of thousands of troops overseas instead of hundreds of thousands. MORE »

All of the fit youngsters in America have already been sent off to War, so the only people left on the home front are pre-teens, very old people, and the obese. Various military/first responder spokespeople in this tragic AP article blame an epidemic of fat volunteers on “a lack of physical education in the high schools” and “a hard time understanding a healthy diet and the importance of daily exercise.” Jesus, you know we are doomed when fucking Army recruiters sound like a pack of sissypants liberals. You also know we are doomed when the Army has literally run out of non-obese people to recruit. [AP]

Just now your editors were having a little talky about our secret boyfriend, the New York Times’ token cross-dressing felcher Bill Kristol. “His column is boring and moderate this week,” said our Jim Newell. “He probably has some solid shit-eating lines, though.” And WALLAH, just like that, we found a nugget of silliness embedded at the very end of this kind of dull review of different strains of conservatism. MORE »

Every six months or so you will read something in the paper about a kooky new DARPA project where military scientists have outfitted wasps with nuclear warheads, or invented some kind of mind-reading goo or Cloak of Invisibility or whatever. Your semi-annual installment of freaky War Science News has researchers debating the utility of autonomous robots that could maybe avoid torturing people and bombing cemeteries. MORE »

Hey did you hear Barack Obama is doing this worldwide terror tour with his senator friends? Look at those crowds, of soldiers! (Yes, also a lot of them are black. This is true in real life, too.) We can’t really hear what Obama is saying, but he gets a lot of applause, and then he makes a THREE-POINTER FROM DOWNTOWN and he hasn’t even changed into workout clothes. [YouTube]

Here’s your Wonkette Friday Lunch Hour “Escapist” Video: John McCain’s new ad, about how he hates war! First line: “Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war.” Ha ha! Then he romanticizes his and his family’s war experience, for political gain, for 30 more seconds. [YouTube]

The great George W. Bush delivered the commencement address at Colorado’s Air Force Academy today, the same day that his former hobbit slave was publicizing mean books about him. Here he is this morning “chest-bumping” a graduate, who has probably already died in Iraq. [AP Photo]

SUPPORT THE TROOPS: “The U.S. Army doubled its use of ‘moral waivers’ for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the demands of the Iraq war, allowing sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats, and child abusers into the military.” [Guardian]