BSN Weekly: Pilot Who Stopped Israel's 9/11 Finds Out He's A World Hero From Netanyahu's Instagram
Issue of 5 October 2026
What happened last week.
- Absurdity Pilot Who Stopped Israel's 9/11 Finds Out He's A World Hero From Netanyahu's Instagram
Indian Air Force pilot Smit Machchhar intercepted a missile strike that Israeli officials are describing as a potential national catastrophe, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved swiftly to honor him with a phone call Netanyahu filmed and posted himself. The video, which features Netanyahu prominently in frame delivering the praise while Machchhar can be heard somewhere off-camera, has been viewed millions of times by people who now know a great deal about how Benjamin Netanyahu looks when he says the word 'hero.'
- Politics Iran Confirms It Has No Oil Money After Careful Review Of Having No Oil Money
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced this week that Iran is experiencing zero oil revenue for what he called the first time in history, a milestone Tehran's top security official marked by issuing a formal economic crisis warning. The warning confirmed, in considerable detail, the same information Bessent had just announced.
- Politics Trump Posts Tom Cotton's Phone Number To Settle An Argument About Clocks
The United States Senate has spent the better part of two years debating whether to stop moving clocks twice a year, and on Tuesday the negotiation escalated to the point where the President of the United States published a sitting senator's phone number on social media and asked strangers to call it. Senator Tom Cotton, who controls the phone in question, responded by warning that American children would be waiting for school buses in complete darkness, which is either a policy objection or a hostage note.
- Politics Lithuania Paid For A US Military Base Before America Agreed To Build One
President Trump announced Tuesday that the United States would 'consider' establishing a permanent military base in Lithuania, a process Lithuania's government apparently considered complete, as it had already volunteered to cover the full cost before the sentence was finished. Defense officials in Vilnius confirmed the offer, noting that the funds had been earmarked pending what one ministry document described as 'the American side saying literally anything encouraging.'
- Politics Vance Deployed To Comfort The Americans Trump's Economy Stats Haven't Reached Yet
With President Trump describing the current economy as the greatest in the history of civilization, Vice President JD Vance has been quietly touring the country to acknowledge that some Americans are struggling, stressed, and possibly eating the same rotisserie chicken four different ways this week. Sources familiar with the White House communications strategy say the arrangement is intentional, though they were unable to explain what the intention is.
- Politics Republicans Who Voted For The Iran War Now Running On Lower Gas Prices
With debates underway across the country, a growing number of Republican incumbents are quietly retiring their Trump talking points and replacing them with urgent concern about the cost of eggs. Several of the same candidates who authorized the Iran war are now appearing in local TV spots standing in front of gas station signs, looking worried.
- New York City NYC Teachers Flagging AI Homework While Decorating Classrooms With AI Posters
New York City students who pushed to restrict artificial intelligence in schools say the technology has simply migrated to the front of the room, where teachers are now using it to generate quiz questions, slideshow graphics, and at least one poster reminding students that integrity is non-negotiable. The complaint arrives weeks after several schools gave educators access to AI detection software, a tool students say is being deployed exclusively in one direction.
- New York City DC37 Old Guard Furious the New Mayor Is Too Much of a Socialist
New York City's largest municipal union helped elect democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani on the theory that he would be their socialist. Now that contract season has arrived, veteran union leadership is discovering, with some alarm, that he may have meant it. Sources close to the negotiations say the tension inside DC37's boardroom has reached what one longtime delegate described as "philosophically uncomfortable."
- Culture Wim Wenders Joins Fashion Documentary As The Man Who Agreed To Just Watch
Wim Wenders, director of 'Wings of Desire' and three decades of visually transcendent cinema, has signed on to a new feature documentary about photographer Peter Lindbergh in the role of executive producer, a title the industry uses when someone important is present but not, strictly speaking, doing anything. The film will be directed instead by Alexandra Matine, a French novelist making her documentary debut, whose previous work includes a book called 'Scopophilia,' which is the clinical term for the compulsion to stare at things.
- Conspiracy Fort Hood Shooter Has Been On Death Row Twelve Years But The Urgent Question Is The Camera Angle
Pete Hegseth announced this week that the Pentagon is exploring plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Legal experts, military law scholars, and at least one network television standards department are now urgently trying to determine whether any law, regulation, or basic cable precedent covers what Hegseth is describing. Hasan, who has been on military death row since 2013, was reportedly not consulted on his streaming preferences.
- Absurdity LeBron James initially wanted to play for New York.
Sources close to LeBron James have confirmed that the four-time NBA champion, at some point before committing to Cleveland, Miami, Cleveland again, Los Angeles, and Los Angeles again, expressed a genuine preference for playing in New York. The Knicks organization acknowledged the revelation Thursday and immediately began debating whose fault it would have been.
- Absurdity After changing AI to SI, Trump is also changing gerrymandering to gerryenglish because this is America not China.
The White House announced Tuesday that the term 'gerrymandering' will be retired from all federal redistricting documents following a linguistic review that determined the word contains what officials described as 'an unacceptable concentration of foreign-sounding syllables.' The replacement term, 'gerryenglish,' will appear in all future guidance from the Office of Electoral Integrity, which was itself renamed last month from the Office of Democratic Processes after someone flagged the word 'democratic.'