Horses and Hardware

 When Ford Motor Company released their first automobile for sale, there was an issue.  The Model T ran on a refined petroleum product.

I get that  the fact that fuel was needed fuel is not news to you.  That also was not actually the issue.  The issue lay in the acquisition of said petroleum products.  There was no such thing as a gas station or a convenience store with gas pumps.  When an automobile operator needed fuel, a trip to the hardware store to purchase a container or two of fuel.

Now, if the need for fuel was absolute and immediate, say you ran out during a drive (fuel gauges and such did not yet exist), then you would probably need to find alternative transportation to the hardware store or wherever else the source was.  A one horsepower vehicle was a very likely choice.  Although TBF a carriage or wagon could be pulled by more than one horse.  While I was certainly not around in those days, I assume that some folks ended up taking an unplanned walk.

That scenario is what I think about whenever some short-sighted moron suggests that electric cars can't go mainstream because there is insufficient infrastructure to conveniently refuel them.  Then I think about a television commercial from a few years ago.  A rugged individualist type driving a pickup truck that is pulling a horse trailer. The truck and trailer somehow magically (certainly through no fault of the aforementioned rugged individualist) gets stuck in mud/soft ground. Rugged individualist (RI) does not get frustrated or angry. Instead he harnessed up the horses he was hauling and uses the horses to pull the truck out of the mire thus demonstrating his something something tough guy RI.

The morons laugh about out-of-power EVs having to be charged up on road by an internal combustion vehicle carrying a generator. Apparently actually thinking about stuff and Gawd forbid, studying history is just too damn difficult.

Infrastructure has not historically appeared fully formed all at once. Building the interstate highway system, electrifying rural America, or even simple sewer systems, all of that took time and planning and effort to come to fruition. The same will be true of the infrastructure for EVs. Whether we are talking battery swaps or solar powered parking lots or straight grid connections, eventually there will be enough of it that people will act and speak as though it had always been that way.

Look, I get that some folk really like gas/diesel vehicles. I have owned sports cars and currently own a couple of motorcycles. I enjoy my gas powered pickup truck. That does not stop me from seeing that EVs and autonomous vehicles are coming and they are coming in a hurry. Making a stupid argument is not gonna stop it.

 

The Big Lie

 This piece was originally written and published in 2016.  I referenced it in a previous post so, here it is in total.

Any number of my friends have described themselves as “Fiscal Conservatives”.  One did so a while back in a Facebook comment.  I answered with the following response.

“I am going to have to take exception to your description of yourself as fiscally                conservative. The problem is that some people are not as smart or given to indepth thinking as are you. As such, they will jump to the conclusion that if someone does not describe themselves as a fiscal conservative, they must be a fiscal liberal. Of course, there is no such thing. Oh sure, there are plenty of folk who indulge in profligate fiscal policies for their personal or business finances but there is no significant group with any power base that could be described as fiscal liberals. That makes the term "fiscal conservative" a variation on Robert Heinlein's best way to lie. He said the best way to lie was to tell the truth so unconvincingly that no one believes you. While you really are fiscally conservative, saying so implies an opposite that simply does not exist.

Now there are plenty of folks who prioritize things over fiscal policy. The Greens prioritize environmental policy and it does make sense that if you can't breathe or if you have no clean water, saving money will not be anywhere near as impressive. Other groups prioritize other things but none of them are proponents of profligate spending for frivolous reasons. The icon of the majority religion of this nation, as told in the sacred book the alleged adherents allegedly revere(the bible), prioritized caring for the poor, sick, children, and helpless over saving or making money. According to said allegedly revered book, the icon went so far as to violently remove those engaged in fiscal operations from the temple. But as I said, an awful lot of people lack the depth of thought necessary to extrapolate and adjust their actions accordingly.”

Of course, the idea continued to percolate in the back of my mind.  It occurs to me that there is always a cost associated with regulations.  Typically for a code or regulation to mean anything at all there has to be some level of inspection and/or enforcement.  In theory, the goal of the codes or regulations should be to ensure that the cost of an action, product, or process is borne by those who profit from it.  So we have a situation wherein the public, in the form of the government, pays to enforce regulations that prevent the public from being unfairly burdened with the detritus left over from the action, product, or process that profits or benefits an individual or small group.  Now, I am happy to go on at length about risk socialization and profits privatization but that is for a different essay.  For this one, the takeaway is that codes and regulations have a fiscal impact.  

Generally the fiscal impact is negative - it costs money.  I acknowledge there could be situations where that cost is offset but generally, enforcement of regulations involves paying someone to do inspections and making provisions for accurate records keeping or, to put it another way, establishing a bureaucracy.

The leap that realization sponsored is probably not an obvious one for most folks.  It occurred to me that in the political realm, one could not honestly be both fiscally and socially conservative.  The terms are of necessity mutually exclusive, considered from the aspect of codifying behavior into law.  There is no way to ban abortion or control the sexual activities of consenting adults or even to regulate the use of organic recreational substances(psilocybin mushrooms or cannabis etc) without funding those who would enforce the rules made about those behaviors.  In other words, to be willing to regulate social behavior is to be willing to spend common funds in that effort.  (Yes, you could push for turning enforcement over to private entities and allowing them to collect fines or confiscate assets but surely that can’t sound like a good idea to anyone.  If it does, please go elsewhere to discuss it.)

The only way to force compliance or verify compliance is to allocate tax dollars.

Even the tax dollars from those who vehemently disagree with the necessity of those rules, even the tax dollars from those engaged in the very behaviors being regulated, even the tax dollars from those who refuse to follow the teachings of the Christ because it would cost too much in their opinion, those tax dollars will have to be spent on enforcement or, the regulations mean nothing at all.

I do not doubt or argue the existence of people who find both the wasteful expenditure of public funds and certain individual behaviors distasteful.  Politics however, is about setting priorities, about choosing what gets attention first.  That doesn’t mean you don’t think other things are deserving of attention, just that you believe that YOUR THING has to be considered first.  If a person prioritizes restraint in public spending, they could make the claim of being fiscally conservative.  Something HAS to be the primary concern.  However, simply saying it is the primary concern doesn’t make it so.  Actions have to support the words.

Now, the individual “you” can believe anything you like.  You can tell yourself and others that you want to minimize tax dollar spending and that you want to ban abortions and you want to ban Gay sex and you want to ban minorities walking around in public as though they had rights.  It cannot however, be a movement or political organization.  At the governmental or societal level, you cannot want to create new regulations and oppose spending.  You can twist your words and torture your justifications all you like but the basic truth of it will not change.  If you want to regulate what I can smoke or who I can screw, you are simply not even a little bit fiscally conservative.  

If you want the government to spend wantonly on the things you deem deserving of wanton spending, the takeaway is that you want the government to spend wantonly.  A social conservative cannot be a fiscal conservative.  Lying to me, lying to yourself will not make it so.  If you want the government to spend wantonly to save fetuses or to prevent adult citizens from addressing their mental, physical or social issues with a plant that grows wild or to continue the effective subjugation of humans you feel are inferior, the takeaway is that you want the government to spend wantonly.  Regardless of what you call yourself, you are no fiscal conservative.

Your actions and the results of your actions will determine how you are known.  The aforementioned allegedly revered book quotes the allegedly revered religious icon as saying that you will know a tree by the fruit it bears.  It isn’t what you say, it is what you produce or cause to be produced that will identify you.  

So, what is it going to be?

Not One Thing. Also Not The Other

 Several years ago, the Pentagon correlated energy independence with national security.  "Then-General James Mattis famously called on the DoD to "unleash us from the tether of fuel" because the logistical need for gas was costing lives and limiting troop movement." (according to Gemini)

Among those who identify as political conservatives, there is a significant percentage, perhaps even a majority, who would call themselves "fiscal conservatives".  It has been 10 years or more since I first called bullshit on that claim (see my essay, "The Big Lie" which I will post to this blog next) but, for the sake of discussion I will ignore what I think of it.  I will simply point out that if such a thing actually existed, one would expect them to choose the least costly path whenever there was a viable option.

So what might we think about a politician who considered it reasonable to spend an exorbitant amount of money to make the nation less secure?  What if that politician called themselves something else, would that matter?  

The question is not academic.  Unfortunately for humanity, the USA has allowed Felon47, Donald J.Trump to be in a position to betray several groups at once.    By limiting the nation's access to renewable energy, he demonstrates that he is not now, nor has he ever been a patriot.  He is taking intentional, overt steps to weaken the nation.  He is doing that by unnecessarily spending tax revenue.  In doing that he establishes that he is decidedly NOT a fiscal conservatives and that he is willing to screw over those who claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism.

So we have installed into the presidency an individual who is not concerned with the security of the nation nor does he care about the condition of the nation or the world's economy.  He is not one thing and he is also not the other.  I will never understand how anyone finds this appealing enough to vote for.

Grudging Admiration

 If you were trying to stop a car from running you down, throwing a gallon of a boiling hot sticky substance would probably be laughed at.  I do not know of one single human that would keep coming if you hit them with a gallon of boiling hot sticky liquid but, I also do not know of a single car that would be slowed down or stopped by it.

If you find yourself in a fight, regardless of whether you are an instigator or a reluctant participant or something in between, you need to use tactics, tools and methodologies that will harm the opponent in front of you.  No matter how effective a given tactic was against a different opponent, it is not guaranteed to have the same effect on anything else.  If you want to win the fight, you have to understand your opponent well enough to know what specifically hurts them.

This is not a revelation from a military genius.  Hell, it ain't even original.  Sun Tzu and other tacticians throughout history have harped on the necessity of knowing your enemy.  It is a core, if not THE core, teaching of any serious military academy.  The only thing that might be more important is knowing yourself.

Right now might be a bit of a dangerous time to be rich.  I'm sure you're fine if you're upper-middle class.  Even if you have 5-20 million dollars you need not worry.  But if you are truly investor class, now would be a good time to be careful and pay close attention to the world.

As near as I can figure, Iran wants to win the fight they are in.  They apparently decided very early on that they were not technically in a fight with the USA.  Instead, they decided they were in a fight with the obese orange felon himself, Donald John Trump with the quiet acquiescence of the rest of the world.  So, they studied him.  They looked at what sort of person he is and then chose a plan of action that would be effective against him, even if it appears unfair to a bunch others, even if it doesn't look like any plan they have used against different opponents.

Iran is isolating Felon47.  They looked and saw how he constantly struggles to be seen as a peer of the uber-wealthy.  They analyzed his words and actions to understand that money is the most important thing to him. (I mean, if it weren't for Ivanka and golf, it would be the only thing important to him but, I digress.)  After getting to know their enemy, they have chosen a course of action that is as brilliant as it is brutal as it is brutally effective.  They are seriously fucking with the global economy.

If you are investor class, you are almost guaranteed to have an investment position that includes energy, specifically petroleum.  Iran has taken steps to slow or halt the production of petroleum products in several of their neighbor nations.  Oil is globally priced and traded.  A reduction in the volume most any given nation produces can affect the entirety of the market.  It will inflate the costs of anything that involves the use of petroleum products in the manufacturing process or the transportation of the product.  That inflation means the middle-class folk that invest their "extra" money will have less of it to invest.  That will result in less profits for the investor class.  The production facilities are typically built with investment funds.  A lot of them will need significant repair.  That will result in either a lower dividend payout or even additional investment to pay for the repairs.  The investor class will probably not be patient.  They will demand a cessation if they believe they are likely to lose more income.

I don't mean to imply that as a poor person I will not be hurt by this crap.  I and all of my similarly economically challenged brethren will absolutely be hurt by inflation.  But we are just collateral damage.  The target is those who are in Trump's Rolodex or that have him in theirs.  The goal is to have those whose approval he so desperately seeks to pressure him in to stopping doing stupid shit.

I will admit that despite the pain I am likely in for, I do have a grudging admiration for just how well it appears they understand him.  They knew he would pay no attention to facts or history or even our various intel agencies.  They knew that he wants MBS to think favorably of him.  They knew about the shady investments various "oiligarchs" (see what I did there?) around the Middle-East have made in various Trump properties.  They looked at all of that and then punched him right in the money.  I doubt they considered the effect the war would have on his relationship with MTG and the rest of MAGAts.  That is likely just icing on the cake.  The stock market is in a negative trend.  Without drastic action, recession is a near guarantee and it will probably be a global recession.  No one will be confused about why it is happening.  His hubris and incompetence will be remembered even after all of his assault victims are gone.  

I do not enjoy war or inflation but, you have to appreciate a well fought fight.

Disappointing But, Not Shocking

 I would hate to have to detail the number of times I have heard the admonition to "Never meet your heroes."  

We in the Western world (and possibly others as well) have a bad habit of ascribing unseen positive characteristics to individuals that we have seen do some important and positive things.  As a kid, I could not believe that those incredibly gorgeous women of Hollywood could have possibly done anything that could justify divorcing them.  As an adult, I know better.  I phrased that on purpose.  I'm better at it but, I am not perfect at it. I still generally have a more positive view of folks if I know they have unrelated positive things in other circumstances. 

The recent revelations about Cesar Chavez, regardless of their accuracy and truthfulness, should not reflect on the actual good things he validly did.  Rather it should function as a reminder to all of us that if a given entity is human, they are most likely flawed.  Not flawed in every way but, with flaws definitely in the mix.  

In the "guy" community a common thing to say to another guy upon observing a particularly attractive female is "Rule #1".  Rule 1 is pretty simple.  "No matter how good she looks, somewhere there is some guy that is tired of putting up with her shit." (I really needed to know that rule as a kid)  We say it because we can be blinded by beauty and the reminder (might) help.  I suggest we extrapolate.  Whatever human you are describing as flawless, be it Mother Teresa or our orange menace, you are wrong.  There is a flaw there and if history is the guide, the flaw may well be as impactful as whatever good they do.

At the end of the day, the flaws do not erase the good they do and the good does not erase their flaws.  Meet your heroes if you must but, worshiping your heroes is the path to disappointment.

Granting Permission

 When I was a kid, newborn until I left for boot camp, my family lived in the inner-city.  Now, as it turns out we were poor but, some of our neighbors were much closer to middle-class.  That made a bit of a difference in what you had but doubtless due to our shared culture, it did not make much of a difference in what you did.

One of the things we did was play.  We didn't have big, well-maintained parks but we did have lightly traveled streets so, a lot of our play occurred there.  We would play a heavily modified version of football.  Typically, rather than tackling our unpadded friends and family to the hard and hot asphalt, we would play "two hand touch".  For the most part, we did not engage in full contact.  We played with the largest even number that could be gotten from the group that showed up but, even when it was an odd number, we altered the rules a bit and had the quarterback play for both sides or some other workaround.  

We played basketball, inside courts when we could but if there was sufficient light and it was not storming, outside courts would not be avoided either.  We looked around at who was there and agreed on a format.  One-on-one, two-on-two, etc up to five-on-five, we made it work.  We played half-court or full-court according to the conditions.  

Regardless of whether we were playing football, basketball, baseball, dodgeball, kickball everyone knew and agreed to the rules and traditions of the field or neighborhood or group.  Making up new rules mid-game was not a thing.  We tacitly agreed to the rules and granted permission for the others playing to enjoy the same freedoms and restrictions.

Again, we were kids playing and most of us came from poor or near-poor families.  As such, we did not have the money to hire referees or umpires or judges.  We knew the rules and we abided by them - unless we didn't.  A kid that routinely violated or ignored those rules and traditions would likely find themselves in the last group when teams were being chosen or even simply left on the sidelines.  The only power we had to enforce those rules was to avoid the rule breakers.  At the end of the day, everyone had to play by the same rules regardless of whether they made one better or worse at the game.

Oddly enough, war has some similarities to the play we engaged in as kids.  That should probably not be especially shocking given that I went from playing in the street to wearing a uniform and following orders in a disturbingly short period of time.

A given nation/military will decide, or have a decision foisted upon them, which other nation/militaries they wish to fight alongside.  Essentially they are choosing their team.  While prior allegiances and traditions will heavily influence which team chooses which player, news that nations who are allies in other paradigms are on opposing sides isn't really news.  It happens and it happens with sufficient frequency as to be largely unremarkable when it happens.

Another aspect of our play that shows up in the military is the establishment of rules that will apply in the conflict.  We grant others, and in turn are granted by them, permission to operate fully within the parameters established by those rules.  When our cartoonish SecDef Pete Kegsbreath illegally and unadvisably called for "no quarter", he was establishing the rules by which our team would operate.  Unfortunately, traditionally the phrase is an abbreviation.  The full statement is "No quarter shall be asked or given". 

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it.  "No quarter asked or given" is a military term meaning that combatants will not take prisoners, offering no mercy and expecting none in return; those who surrender are killed. It signifies a fight to the death, which is considered a war crime under international law and the Hague Conventions." 

He was effectively giving "the opposing team" permission to treat our team as barbarically as they see fit.  He did this unilaterally.  As far as I have been able to discern, he has not walked back or clarified his statement.  He is standing by granting Iran and their allies permission to do anything they so desire to our troops whether they are wounded and helpless, attempting to surrender, or otherwise incapacitated.  I really want you to think about this.  Most of our military work in support roles.  Intel, logistics, communications, engineering - those sorts of things.  The direct combat folk are frequently (and reasonably accurately) described as "the tip of the spear".  The opposing team is not going to care and probably will not even know your prescribed role.  If "no quarter" is the understanding then the daughter who signed up to get money for college and works in the mail room on the ship or base, will be treated the same as the Rambo-esque Marine in your mind.  Which is to say, they will be unceremoniously killed or tortured or both should the other team have the opportunity.

Most of our allies have a different relationship with war than does the USA.  We are geographically privileged with friendly neighbors and two ginormous oceans to protect us.  They see war up close.  They don't have to wait for the 6 o'clock news, they can walk outside and look around to see as much unimaginable horror as they can stand.  Those allies, and those who are ostensibly unaligned, were not consulted about what the parameters and rules of the conflict would be.  They know that they can be held legally and/or politically liable for anything that happens to their sons and daughters if they agree to "play" by those illegal rules.  So far, they are all making the rational, moral and obvious decision to stay out of the fray for now.

If you have a son or daughter in the U.S. military, you should probably go ahead and contact a lawyer to sue POTUS and SecDef should they suffer as a result of that particular illegality.  Whatever happens to your loved ones will happen because those two unqualified entertainers ignorantly granted Iran permission to do that.

Multi-Trick 3

I stumbled across a story detailing a very positive aspect of the potential of AI (which I still believe would be better understood as "MI" for Manufactured Intelligence rather than Artificial.  As is traditional, the Universe appears to not care that I am right.).  I decided that Google Gemini was the correct author for this post.  Everything below this opening paragraph is copied straight from Gemini.  This is an incredible use case but I will admit that demonstrations of this level of power and potential are quite likely to gain the attention of bad actors with limited resources.  Security must be a primary concern but, we can't and shouldn't halt human progress because a few will abuse the advancements.  But we really need to be careful.

The story you're looking for is about Paul Conyngham, an Australian tech entrepreneur and machine learning expert who used a combination of AI tools—most notably AlphaFold and ChatGPT—to develop a personalized cancer vaccine for his rescue dog, Rosie.

While the headlines often say he "cured" his dog, the reality is a bit more nuanced: the treatment successfully shrank her terminal tumors by about 75% and significantly improved her quality of life, though he and his veterinary team are still working on resistant areas of the cancer.

🔗 Key Links to the Story

• The Scientist: ChatGPT and AlphaFold Help Design Personalized Vaccine for Dog with Cancer (Comprehensive deep dive into the science).

• The Street: Tech boss uses AI and ChatGPT to make his dog a cancer vaccine (Focuses on the timeline and the "world-first" nature of the vaccine).

• The Decoder: AI consultant uses ChatGPT, AlphaFold, and Grok to find treatment (Details the specific AI stack he used).

• Vet Candy: A man with no biology degree used ChatGPT... It worked (A perspective from the veterinary community).

---

🛠️ How He Did It

Conyngham didn't just "ask an AI for a cure"; he used his data science background to orchestrate a complex biological workflow:

1. Genomic Sequencing: He paid $3,000 to have Rosie’s healthy DNA and tumor DNA sequenced at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

2. Identifying Mutations: He used ChatGPT to help him analyze the 320GB of raw data to find the specific mutations driving the cancer.

3. Protein Modeling (AlphaFold): He used AlphaFold to model the 3D structure of the mutated proteins (specifically the c-KIT protein) to see how they differed from healthy ones.

4. Vaccine Design: Based on these models, he identified "neoantigens"—targets the immune system could recognize—and drafted a formula for an mRNA vaccine.

5. Expert Collaboration: He took his findings to the UNSW RNA Institute, where real-world scientists verified his work and physically manufactured the vaccine.

⚠️ A Touch of Context

While this is a triumph for "citizen science," experts note a few "don't try this at home" caveats:

• Technical Skill: Conyngham has 17 years of experience in machine learning; he wasn't a total novice to data.

• The "Cure" Label: One tumor shrank 75%, but others were resistant. It’s an ongoing treatment rather than a final "cure."

• Concurrent Therapy: Rosie was also receiving standard immunotherapy, making it hard for scientists to prove exactly how much of the success came from the AI-designed vaccine alone.

Seriously???

 Sending Barron to boot camp and advanced infantry training would increase the chances of me actually believing the war with Iran was truly necessary.

I mean, I'm not an idiot so I do understand that Felon47 is willing to throw any of his offspring not named Ivanka under bus or turn them to cannon fodder but, I know he doesn't want them to know that.

Multi-Trick Pony 2

 I have frequently, perhaps too frequently for some, pointed out that one of the major flaws with most folk's attempts to predict the future is that they pick one thing to change and then metaphorically place that one changed thing in the current paradigm.  

I rightly and accurately point out that while things are changing, things change.  The change(s) is not limited to mobile phones or computers or smart whatever's.  Case in point, the video you should definitely watch here, shows potential for as impactful a change as can happen short of AGI/ASI.

If there are flaws in the video that I would have caught had I more (read: any) education in that field, don't be shy.  Point them out on the page so that no one else need recreate my missteps.  Otherwise, feel free to share widely but, do understand it is not my video.

 Within the USA, actual intentional voter fraud is nearly non-existent and when it does happen, it is unlikely to be an immigrant or anyone on the left.

Politician fraud OTOH, is as common as a Grindr profile at a republican gathering.

Multi-Trick Pony

 The world is currently in the process of driving me batshit crazy.  Well, I say it is the world but in truth, it is pretty much just the USA and Russia.  Mostly, it is the political scene in the USA.  I have had to cut back on some of my news watching for the sake of what sanity I have left.  Luckily, I have other interests

I do consider myself a futurist and I generally pay pretty close attention to technology and science trends and news.  As is true in other endeavors, the fact of something isn't necessarily the thing you pay attention to.  Rather it is how that fact or change or new tech etc etc etc, will affect life in the future.

The attached video does a pretty good job of explaining the dimensions and output of a new electric motor design.  The motor it focuses on is rated for 1000hp.  For reference, the engine in a big rig or a large class A RV would typically have an output of 400-600hp.  The video is easily worth the watch.

I do not know what use cases are actually planned for the motor.  In my mind, adding a couple of these 30lb motors and perhaps a 200lb battery/controller to a big rig could make a real difference.  The rigs could use the electric motors to initiate motion from a stop without the typical plume of diesel exhaust hitting the air.  It could make going uphill with a full load something that doesn't have to back traffic up.  Fuel might well be saved and rather than the noise of the "Jake brake" slowing could be used just to charge the battery back up.  There is a ton of potential for savings on fuel, time, air pollution, and noise.

Of course, some folk will bitch for whatever reason they want to bitch about it but, the potential is still there. The future is coming whether you are "here for it" or not.

Out of the Frying Pan ...

 If there was any doubt, it is gone.  In the last few days, I heard Mullins talk about the war in Iran except that then he claimed it isn't actually a war.  I heard him refer to President Hegseth a couple of times.  His press interviews are painful to watch and there is a near guarantee that he will be getting some of the facts totally wrong.

I can only reach one conclusion.  The incompetence is intentional.  This time around, Felon47 has refused to hire anyone who is not incompetent and manipulable. Ignorant me from just a few years ago would have doubted there were that many people who were materially soooooooooo much less capable than the Felon but he found a bunch and the idiots in the Senate let him.

 

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”- Albert Einstein

Images Of The Future

Y'all military types might wanna go ahead and watch this.  There will come a time in the not too distant future where this is more relevant than you imagine.

https://youtu.be/4cc1pPmHY_M?si=5SBkIHNMvwo1ossQ 

Caveman Computer

 I have taught a few folk to shoot over the years.  Generally I will show them the various parts of the weapon, show them the ammo and explain how it all works.  Then I might shoot it a time or two to let them get accustomed to the noise and see, if applicable, the kick.

Overall, I do not want them surprised by the weapon in operation. I want them to know with reasonable assurance what should happen and in what order.  I want them to know when/if something has gone wrong and they need to alert me or someone else with greater knowledge than they.

I want them to understand the weapon before they attempt to use or operate the weapon.  Nothing about about how I taught those folk was remarkable.  Few, if any, weapons specialists in the world would suggest that you use weapons you do not understand.  Imagine you are a WWII bomber pilot early in the war.  You could have dropped thousand pounds bombs from a low level bombing run and been perfectly fine.  If you tried that same procedure with the same distances but you dropped a nuke instead, you just made your last screwup.  You used a weapon you did not understand.

That is the attitude I bring to the table with my support for Anthropic and their reluctance to give Piss Drunk Pete their trust and permission to use Claude AI however they wish.  I rather doubt Kegseth understands the AI any better than I do.  For now, it needs moral human supervision and morality is in short supply with this (mis)administration.

If you were to hand a caveman a machine gun, what do you think would happen?  We may not have to wait very long for a demonstration.

Death To Irony!!!

Irony has been dying the death of a trillion cuts for quite some time now. The frequency of cuts has accelerated over the last, say, year+ but the diagnosis hasn't changed in waaaaaaaaay longer. Why do I mention it? Oh, no reason really.

Congress has not renamed the Dept of Defense. As such, anyone claiming to adhere to the law while using the phrasing "Department of War" is lying and should be trusted like a poison ivy salad with an arsenic dressing.

The Things Change More ...

 Consider this: https://newatlas.com/military/liberty-class-autonomous-naval-ship-production/

Now, think about designing in solar panels, small wind turbines, and even wave power and suddenly you have a loitering sensor array with the potential for weaponization.  They could build and launch thousands of the things.  Schedule them for maintenance once a year (scrape the hull, paint, assess the internals etc etc)

Essentially this could be an element of the surface version of the "Loyal Wingman" program for the skies.  I would probably suggest that each vessel carry a habitat on the deck  for a few humans so that the vessels can be used in search and rescue ops.  I suppose they might as well include a container with ~20 launch able UAVs.

With no crew, the design elements that make Navy ships (barely) suitable for human habitation are largely gone.  No galley or mess decks, minimal or no water desalination or purification, HVAC sufficient to maintain operating range temps for the sensors and weapons systems, no berthing spaces.

Waaaaaaaay less expensive to build.  Waaaaaaay less expensive to crew (what with their being no crew and all).  No breaks for anything except maintenance and/or repair.  Seems like we should have had this already.

No Prize For The Lies

I can think of no end of groups or organizations that I would hate to have my name positively associated with.  If one (or more) of those groups or organizations decided I was worthy of an award from them, I would most likely decline it.  (I admit that as a poor person, awards that included significant funds would be a LOT more difficult to turn down.)  If the group or organization or even an individual is not something or someone I can respect, then most any award or commendation they might offer will be unworthy of my respect as well.

I doubt I would be considered different in that attitude I describe above.  Most of the folk I routinely interact with could believably make a similar, if not identical, claim. I mean, imagine you were notified that the group NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) wanted to make you their Person Of The Year.  Most folks I know would immediately seek to distance themselves from the group and any activities or statements that could have justifies the award.

Again, that is not a particularly unique identifier for anyone I can think of.  "We" like awards from those we respect and value.  We see it all over.  Actors are ecstatic to get an Academy Award (aka Oscar).  Singers and song writers love their industry - the Recording Academy of the United States presents them with a Grammy.  While an actor might well accept and be grateful for a performance award from the Society of Mississippi Duck Hunters, and while Dale Earnhart Jr might not turn down a superior engineering award from the Rural Michigan Competitive Quilters, as a general rule the awards mean more to us when the award(s) come from subject matter experts and perhaps the most when it is our peers who recognize our particular accomplishments.  I will go out on a limb here and assume that in general, you agree with what I have said so far.  You could go ahead and make similar claims without worry of significant argument from me.

Of all the prizes that a given current day human might be awarded, the Nobel Prizes are among the most desirable.  Now, I experience no reluctance in acknowledging that the Nobel Foundation is made up of humans who, like every other human I know of, are imperfect.  For a given Nobel Prize, I might disagree with the Foundation about who deserves it the most (I am in no danger of having significant opinion on several of the prizes due to my relative ignorance in those fields but where I do know stuff, I opine) but, generally speaking, I agree that the decision to include those who win (as well as several who do not) was well considered and well made.  They have been at it for a while and the Nobel Foundation gets it reasonable if not right, the majority of the time. 

Felon47 is enamored with the prizes awarded by the Nobel Foundation.  I doubt I have shocked anyone with that revelation.  He absolutely begged for the Peace Prize.  He has bombastically bitched about journalists he didn't approve of getting the award.  He has claimed that one of his relatives was a genius who won a Nobel.  Through his actions and his words, he establishes that he considers the Nobel Prizes to be prestigious and highly desirable.

Again, none of what I have said so far should be the least bit controversial.  However, I have been not been able to find a significant connection to the Felon for several of prizes or the fields for which they are given.  In those cases, if I want to discuss them, I must extrapolate.  I have to look at how desirable he appears to perceive awards from the Nobel Foundation to be.  

One of the fields/prizes that Felon47 maintains a quieter relationship with is economics.  However, given his attitude towards the Nobel Prizes that he has mentioned, it is totally reasonable to conclude that he sees the Nobel in Economics as a big damn deal.  I am willing to listen to argument but, fair warning, I can read, I speak English, I have access to the interwebs.  I will add that I have been paying attention since well before he first disgraced the White House with his complete lack of class.  You're gonna need a pretty solid argument.

When Felon47 first started talking his tariff idiocy, several economists who were well known, at least within their field, made statements that directly contradicted the claims he was putting forth.  As it became increasingly clear that the Felon generally only listened to those who said what he wanted to hear, various efforts to gain his attention were made.  One method that would have worked with a sane person was the enlisting of previous Nobel Laureates in Economics to offer their expertise in analyzing his claims/plans.  They planned them.

Trump knows his claims about the tariffs and the rest of the economy are lies.  He knows because multiple award winning economists have told him.  Not all of those economists have won Nobels but some of them had.  Others were possessed of different awards and accomplishments.  They all pointed out the flaws in his claims and plans.  He ignored those experts.  Wait, that probably isn't fair.  He did not ignore the experts.  He denigrated them.  He insulted them.  He maligned them.  He accused them of partisanship.  He did however, ignore their counsel.

Felon47 lies to your face because he can.  He knows better and he knows that me and my ilk know better.  He doesn't care.  He doesn't because there are enough citizens who are apathetic, star struck, stupid, or just willing to endure their own pain as long as a minority or liberal is hurt worse, to gum up the works and ensure he gets away with it long enough to be owed favors by those who are getting even richer by his dismantling of our nation.  But let me reiterate, he knows he is lying.  He knows that because those possessed of an award that he lusts after like it was named Ivanka have told him.  The results of his policies are turning up and they are proving the Nobel Laureates right.  He doesn't care.  He doesn't because he doesn't have to.  He will continue to not care until you force him to.

LoUC

 The Law of Unintended Consequences is HILARIOUS when it is affecting other people.  When I am the target of prosecution, it seems unnecessarily harsh.  Either way, it is a lovely device for teaching how much the Universe actually gives a shit about your intentions, desires or wishes.

Whether it is being used against you (or me) or, it is to your unplanned benefit, it behooves all of us to be able to identify the LoUC whenever we see it.  As I am nothing if not helpful, here is the finest example of the LoUC in quite some time.  

(note: Sardonic smirks and/or outright laughter are among the valid responses.)

https://youtu.be/oiTJ7Pz_59A?si=f6fOqg2R28FDTYss

Epstein, Chomsky, and the Village (Why this is the biggest scandal of our lifetimes.)

 Occasionally, I post stuff from others that I think deserves a wider audience.  It does not technically have to come from a veteran but, that is how it usually shakes out.  Below is a post from and retired Navy vet.  If you should feel the urge to share it with others, use the provided like please so that he benefits from it.

https://substack.com/@williamefoster/note/p-187908190?r=4s8r0d&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

I have been planning to talk about Jeffery Epstein for a while and it kept getting pushed off, partially because of my accident but mainly because the story was so much bigger and more sprawling that I initially believed, at least the parts of the story that I felt folks should be paying more attention to.

It started with Noam Chomsky. When I heard about his connection, I – like many – was devastated. Chomsky is as responsible as any single source can be for my transition from a 21-year Sailor who voted for Reagen to whatever I am today. How could this world-class thinker on morality who I admired so much be risking it all for a few hours with some underage girl?

Then I noticed some things. For instance, Chomsky didn’t meet Epstein until he was 82-years old. Although invited, there is no indication he met him much or spent much time in areas where untoward activities could have occurred. I just didn’t believe that an 80+ year old intellectual who had recently retired from MIT and recently helped his wife of 50 years through her last days (cancer) was chasing young girls.

And that was because I didn’t understand who Jeffery Epstein was and what he did. Because we are a salacious people by nature, the girls get the most attention, but they were a means to an end, not the goal. What Jeffery Epstein was at heart was a connector. He wanted to have the most impressive rolodex in the world, to be known as the person who knew everybody.

In many ways, he seemed an impressive man. He skipped two grades of school. He was an accomplished pianist. He was one of those people who seemed to know a good bit about everything. He was also one of those people who didn’t know ENOUGH about anything. He was fired as a private school teacher and fired (well, encouraged to resign) from Bear Stearns (both jobs he talked his way into). He was charismatic enough that he always had a new opportunity but careless enough that those opportunities usually bit him in the ass eventually.

The girls were at the heart of it. One thing you will find if you read enough testimonies from former friends is that every one of them says something like “and he always seemed surrounded by the most beautiful women.” Those women were part of his game, a part along with the pitter-patter, the fact that he knew everyone, the private jet, they were another way to say “Hey, I’m someone important that you can’t afford to ignore.”

None of this is meant to minimize the horrors that most of these women endured or to say that Epstein’s role as a pimp and a trafficker wasn’t important or deserving of prosecution. I don’t want to minimize anything about that part of it. The name of every client should be released, and everyone involved should be punished for whatever their role was in this scheme. But what I do want to point out is that they are not the whole story. They are not where Epstein made his money. Overall, the girls probably cost him money. But he didn’t care because the girls conveyed the message he wanted to convey, “I’m important and I pull all these women, and I can hook you up with some of them if you are important enough to me.”

Epstein made his money through his friendships. He introduced person A to Person B and hoped person B would introduce him to Person C. Knowing Woody Allen let him get a job for a young kid as a film editing intern for Allen’s company. His very grateful uncle became a client for Epstein.

At its core, Epstein’s operation was elder abuse. That’s what he was looking for: the great white whale, $50 million a year in commissions. He got that from some. We know about Leslie Wexner, the billionaire owner of Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch and Bed, Bath and Beyond, among others. He was Epstein’s client for twenty years, even giving him complete power of attorney. He paid Epstein at least $200 million. Wexner eventually fired him, but that relationship opened a thousand other doors among the rich and powerful for Epstein. One was Leon Black, co-founder of Apollo Management who paid Epstein $150 million from 2012 till 2017. They later, in a recurrent pattern, had a falling out.

This was Epstein’s main scam. He invested in property and used his connections in inside trading and access to IPOs and all the usual ways. But his main thing was to know famous people who knew famous people and he could follow that daisy chain until it led him to a rich, old person he could convince to become a client. For instance, the emails are very clear about him procuring a girl for Kimbal Musk (who dated her for months) in an attempt to get closer to Elon Musk. In a rare compliment for Elon, he did seem to sense that something was up and repeatedly rebuffed him.

The main thing that struck me as I read report after report in this world was the utter vacuousness and vapidity of the supposed “elites.” Now, anyone who knows me knows that I already have a pretty dim default view of the people who make up this part of our society. That is, maybe someone can be a billionaire and a great person, but they will have to prove it to me because my initial viewpoint will be dim.

Let’s get back to Chomsky for a minute because I don’t want to seem like I am letting him off. No, I don’t believe he was with young girls or knew much about it. I do believe he was an old person involved in monetary difficulties (because of litigation after his wife’s death) and he ran into a shark who ripped him off. But I also believe he wasn’t as curious as he should have been. And, most disappointingly but backed by his emails, I believe he was willing to overlook at least some degree of Epstein’s crimes.

That is what is most illuminating about the world. A man who became famous for his humanity and for calling out those who financed violence around the world was willing to overlook very real crimes among people who he knew. But the global elite was willing to overlook the thousands of our friends who died of overdoses if Johnson and Johnson’s, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, and AmerisourceBergen’s stocks continued to go up. They were willing to support George Bush’s cesspool of an administration and watch millions of Iraqis die as long as Raytheon and Boeing continued to increase. They are willing to support the pro-genocide part of both parties right now. Jamie Dimon is as responsible for the housing crisis as any single figure. How is he doing right now?

That’s almost funny as he remains the chairman of JP Morgan Chase, a powerful bank who Epstein utilized for years. He had over $200 million stored there and would constantly wire his contact there, Jess Staley, for cash transfers to pay women. The bank was required to file suspicious activity reports with the U.S. government but failed to do so. Eventually, in 2012 after Staley left, they dropped Epstein as a client. They eventually paid about $300 million in total to various groups of victims, a rounding error for a bank that makes $50 billion a year in profit, not even .1%.

In Epstein’s emails, the three most common names are Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsch Bank. That’s the story I want. NONE of Epstein’s many crimes could have occurred without major banks turning a blind eye to his activities. There is a current lawsuit with BoA filed by a survivor under the name “Jane Doe.” Courts recently allowed two claims to continue but dismissed four, including the most serious. A similar case against Bank of New York Mellon was dismissed in its entirety. Deutsch Bank eventually paid regulators $150 million in 2020 but didn’t close Epstein’s accounts until after his final arrest and still were giving him large sums of cash for unknown purposes in 2019.

In my mind, that’s the biggest story and what I want the answers to. How many Epstein’s are there? How many fucking assholes are being propped up by banks that simply do not care what they are enabling as long as they get their fees? What new regulations, if any, do we need?

This has gone on enough but I do want to point out one more thing. What a deep dive into the emails will show you is that this is the biggest scandal of our lifetimes by a country mile. Who the clients are is obviously a big part of it and one we all want to know. How the banks helped is another. But there are so many weird little oddities.

- Trump, Trump, Trump, of course. Was Trump “banging” his former assistant Madelaine Westerhout. The emails seem to indicate that he bragged about it but he isn’t a reliable source, obviously, and the emails contain a LOT of unreliable information.

- Epstein gave money to “Friends of the IDF” and other Israeli military charities. How deep were his connections?

- In 2018, he purchased 330 gallons of sulfuric acid! Now, I don’t believe most of the more salacious parts of the emails, murder and cannibalism, but what the hell was this for? It does seem to have a routine use, to lower the PH of water for desalination, but still.

- Leslie Wexner. Dude was involved for 20 years. Can anyone be CEO of a half dozen major companies and make that much money and be blind to what was going on? It stretches credibility to say the least.

- Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem. He is the CEO of Dubai Ports World and is connected to a chilling email that says “I loved the torture video.”

- Salvatore Nuara. We don’t know much. He was a detective in the NYPD who had previously been in trouble with a different escort service and was listed as a contact of Epstein. Certainly some questions here.

There is so much more. There is very little information about whether Epstein did or did not blackmail people. Personally, I don’t believe it. It’s not good business and doesn’t seem to fit him. But maybe he did want the possibility for insurance? His various homes were riddled with cameras and CDs of videos were found after his arrest, none of which we’ve seen.

My main goal here was just to say that there is so much more here than just the salacious aspects and I hope that somehow, someway we get a full accounting of all the people that enabled this barbarity, not just the one dead guy and the one president. It took a village to let this happen and that village needs to be burned down.

ADDENDUM: Things are happening so fast. Ahmed Bin Sulayem lost his position on February 13^th while I was writing this. Brad Karp, whom I didn’t mention by name but was the source of the Woody Allen story, resigned earlier this week. Howard Lutnick may not survive. The owner of the NY Giants is in hot water. It’s a good start.

Constitutional Rights

 "Jizzlane" Maxwell was called to testify in front of congress.  She repeatedly invoked her 5th Amendment right against self incrimination.  

Maxwell is a naturalized citizen of the USA.  She is also a citizen of the UK.  In addition she holds citizenship in France.  

Maxwell was well within her Constitutional rights to refuse to answer Congress’ questions.  I actually have no issues with that.  Such issues as I have are predicated upon the summary denial of Constitutional rights to so many others.

Maxwell was convicted of violating certain well known laws and traditions of the USA.  She was convicted of multiple counts of crimes associated with the trafficking and abuse of minors. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.  She was successfully able to assert her Constitutional rights post conviction, post appeal, post the conviction of her primary partner in crime, post the murder of said partner,

You know who was not able to assert their Constitutional rights?  The folks murdered by ICE/CBP for exercising their Constitutional right to gather, to protest, to observe and record LEO, as well as those who were murdered for attempting to escape the hellholes American and multi-national corporations have turned their home nations into.

Regardless of the flowery words or the best intentions, at the end of the day we are judgedd by our actions.  We actively denied law-abiding citizens and desperate immigrants their rights.  We watched, allowed, and encouraged a convicted child trafficker/abuser to assert her Constitutional rights.  

I’m pretty sure I would rather be forgotten than to be remembered for being on the side of a monster.