MOST FIRST-WORLD PROBLEM EVER: The Rolls-Royce Cullinan Is Too Small.

WE USED TO DO THIS REGULARLY: The US Air Force’s radical plan for a future fighter could field a jet in 5 years.

The Century Series approach would be a notable departure from the Air Force’s former thinking on its future fighter. In its “Air Superiority 2030” study released in 2016, the Air Force described a long-range, stealthy sensor-shooter called “Penetrating Counter Air,” which would act as NGAD’s central node networked with sensors, drones and other platforms. The Air Force would use prototyping to speed along key technologies in the hope of maturing them early enough for inclusion in advanced aircraft fielded in the early 2030s.

But what Roper calls the “Digital Century Series” would flip that paradigm: Instead of maturing technologies over time to create an exquisite fighter, the Air Force’s goal would be to quickly build the best fighter that industry can muster over a couple years, integrating whatever emerging technology exists. The service would downselect, put a small number of aircraft under contract and then restart another round of competition among fighter manufacturers, which would revise their fighter designs and explore newer leaps in technology.

The result would be a networked family of fighters — some more interrelated than others — developed to meet specific requirements and including best-in-breed technologies aboard a single airframe. One jet might be optimized around a revolutionary capability, like an airborne laser. Another fighter might prioritize state-of-the-art sensors and include artificial intelligence. One might be an unmanned weapons truck.

The best part: “Instead of trying to hone requirements to meet an unknown threat 25 years into the future, the Air Force would rapidly churn out aircraft with new technologies — a tactic that could impose uncertainty on near-peer competitors like Russia and China and force them to deal with the U.S. military on its own terms.”

PRIVACY: Google-Owned Crashlytics Is Using Custom Fonts to Track Users.

THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS: Jackson Lee: House Members Will Have to Start ‘Flooding’ the Senate to Get Gun Control.

80 YEARS AGO TODAY: British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous sunk by German submarine U-29.

Also on this day, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, fulfilling its Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact pledge to help wipe Poland off the map.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Knives made of frozen feces don’t make the cut, disproving well-known legend. “The knives simply melted upon contact, leaving behind streaks of melted poop.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: High school cheerleaders ‘on probation’ after posing with Trump banner, NC district says.

I’m so old, I can remember when school kids were celebrated for actually singing songs to the President.

I wonder what changed.

LOTS OF STUFF, NONE OF IT GOOD: Do You Know What the Democrats Said at Their Debate?

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The Hill’s Niall Stanage Throws NYT Smear Merchants a Lifeline. “My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Brett whip out his penis at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”

SOLIDARITY: Staff at Hong Kong hospital hold rally in support of protesters.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Unsolicited Advice: Your Parents Aren’t Dumb, You’re Just A Nag.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: ‘No Beto’ AR-15 Lower Receiver Available in Time for Christmas, Chanukah.

THIS DOESN’T SEEM GOOD: A sudden explosion at a Siberian virus research center on Monday reportedly left the facility engulfed in flames, according to several Russian news outlets.

DECOUPLING: China economic slowdown sparks debate over what caused the slump, and how Beijing should intervene.

Industrial production growth – an important gauge of manufacturing output – slowed to 4.4 per cent in August, a new 17-year low, while retail sales growth slowed to 7.5 per cent. Fixed asset investment slowed to 5.5 per cent in the first eight months of year, down from 5.7 per cent in the first seven months, despite government efforts to boost local government infrastructure investment.

While the trade war has been commonly blamed for a slowdown which also saw China’s economy grow at its lowest rate on record in the second quarter of this year, others have pointed to challenges to growth that predate last July, when the first tariffs were enacted, such as the deleveraging campaign that started two years ago to reduce debt and risky lending.

“The economic figures would not be that good even without the trade war. The slowdown was already projected,” Hao said. “Instead, policymakers are using the occasion to accelerate long-awaited but delayed reforms, such as interest rate liberalisation.”

China has structural defects. Trump is pushing on them.

NARRATIVE HARDEST HIT: Research refutes ‘assault weapon’ ban, buybacks.

The report goes on to explain that the law’s larger impact on overall gun violence was minimal, because the banned weapons were rarely involved in criminal acts in the first place. According to the FBI, rifles — a broader category that lumps together your grandpappy’s hunting rifle with military-style rifles — constitute an average of 340 homicides per year. Though any loss of life is tragic, these numbers don’t exactly rise to the occasion in solving what is commonly characterized as a national epidemic.

But this debate isn’t about just any old rifle, right? The scope of this debate is often targets one specific style of the rifle: the infamous AR-15.

Again, analysis regarding the AR-15 — the so-called “weapon of choice” of mass shooters — produces less-than-impressive numbers. Between 2007 and 2018, 173 people were killed by mass shooters using an AR-15, according to a New York Times analysis — roughly, 15 per year. (For perspective, 13 people die per year from vending machines falling on them.) The fearmongering regarding this weapon becomes even more apparent when one considers the estimated 8 million AR-15s currently in circulation — the vast majority of which will never be involved in a crime.

This sizable arsenal usually brings up another problematic proposal: mandatory buybacks. Such a program — à la Australia’s National Firearms Agreement (NFA), circa 1996 — could potentially remove these weapons and reduce the risk of them being used to commit future acts of violence.

Yet again, the research suggests otherwise. Scholars increasingly refute any correlation between NFA and declines in violence.

Bad guys gonna bad guy, but firearms can help level the playing field.

VIDEO PODCAST: Brendan O’Neil and David Starkey tell you everything you need to know about Brexit.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Cancel Culture Update-Richard Pryor Weeps. “Of the myriad assaults on free speech — most of which are coming from politically correct leftist scolds — the assault on stand-up comedy is the most ominous. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a comic.”

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to laugh at.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Eleven Things You Need to Know About Vaping.

LIKE A BOSS: Trump Greets Mariano Rivera to ‘Enter Sandman.’

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Ocasio-Cortez: Free Public College Should Be Passed at Same Time as Student Loan Forgiveness.

SURELY THE CHINESE HAVE A WORD FOR GLEICHSCHALTUNG: In Hong Kong, Employees Hide Their Political Leanings as Beijing Forces Companies to Take Sides.

“Any company that gets most of its revenue from the mainland is in a pickle,” Alexander Zwagerman, Senior Lecturer at Arnhem Business School, tells TIME. “Beijing clearly demands that [companies] disavow any semblance of an allegiance to the Hong Kong people and even punishes workers with links to the protesters.”

In the wake of what Zwagerman calls “Beijing’s most heavy-handed use of its economic clout to date,” Cathay Pacific quickly capitulated. Several employees were fired for protest-related reasons, and a few senior staff members, including the CEO and the chairman, have since stepped down.

Cathay has now warned employees that it will take a zero-tolerance approach to “any support for or participation in illegal protests, violent activities or overly radical behavior.” But employees like Lucy say they have no plans to stop. “The company has no right to control our minds or our speech when we’re not working,” she tells TIME.

Lucy has nevertheless taken steps to make sure she’s not found out, like setting her Instagram profile to private. When she worked a flight to Beijing last month, she left her phone at home for fear of having it searched by mainland officials.

It’s important to note that while she’s doing what she can to protect herself, she hasn’t given up on protesting.

CHARMING: Beto O’Rourke hits Pete Buttigieg with expletive-fueled swipe over gun-control comments.

HE’S FINE, REALLY: Democratic front-runner Joe Biden struggled to recall the word “escalator” while bashing President Trump during a campaign stop in Miami, Florida.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Are the Democrats Committing Electoral Suicide? “I’m not sure Marianne Williamson and I watched the same debate, the debate in which the term ‘white supremacist’ was freely thrown down at Trump by Joe Biden, the supposed moderate in the Dems’ crowded field. Trump, who not only has Jewish grandkids but has worked closely with Don King and even with Al Sharpton, was called just about the worst possible thing in American politics, with zero evidence. And the rest of the candidates joined in the Bizarro World accusation. It isn’t so much that the Democrats are bringing a knives to a gunfight, as Williamson worries; it’s more like they’re bringing kazoos to the symphony.”

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for September 16, 2019. “Biden threatens a black man with a chain, Beto wants to take your guns, and Democrats don’t want to govern America, they want to punish it.”