Is It Soup Yet?

 In several different discussions over the last few weeks, I have compared the state of AI (which I still think would be better described as a Manufactured Intelligence or MI) to the state of transportation in the nation when the Model T was first being sold.  

Imagine you were there for the first sale of a “T” in NYC and you heard the purchaser say “Finally, I can drive to California”.  Perhaps you would consider the fact that the car needed smoother travel surfaces than a horse did and that gave you some doubt.  If you were a time traveler you might note that there were no gas stations and the hardware stores that carried fuel were not guaranteed to be conveniently placed.  Perhaps you might think about the fact that the car and the engine that powered it were fairly new and largely unproven technologies.

If you were able to consider all of those things, you would be hard pressed to come to any conclusion other than that first purchaser was optimistically delusional at best and creatively suicidal at worst.  However, if you were honest with yourself, you could also conclude that if absolutely everything went as well as it could, such a trip was absolutely doable.  Sure, it might take you a month or two but, in theory, it would have been possible even if the failure probability was north of 90%.

Basically, that early adopter would be trying to shortcut evolution.  Our cultural evolution has given us Interstate highways and a vast loose network of refueling locations.  As one who has driven from East TN to CA more than once, I can assure you there were no concerns that I would not be able to find fuel or that a flat tire or other minor mechanical failure would result in the cancellation of the trip.  Though the vehicles I used for the trips I took were far and away more advanced than the Model T, I would suggest that with a moderate amount of proper planning, the probability of catastrophic failure for a Model T to make that trip today is probably less than 40%.  That is with leaving the car the exact same and using the evolved transportation environment.

The use case(s) being pushed or marketed for AI for your average human has them attempting to do that evolution skipping thing.  To accept the uses as marketed, we would have to ignore the fact that LLMs have been delivering fallacious answers to the communication medium being mined by LLMs for answers to our questions. We would have to ignore the fact that there exists among us no few “trolls” who purposefully post wrong or misleading information on that communication medium with the primary or secondary intent of corrupting the answers an AI might deliver.

I am not a Luddite. I firmly believe that there will come a time when the way AI is being marketed will seem reasonable and will reflect their actual and honest abilities.  I firmly believe that there are use cases in specific industries where the AI is currently a useful and reasonable tool.  (AlphaFold anyone?)  But for anything “mission critical” LLMs in their current (and past) state are a risky tool at best.  They should only be used if you are willing to check their work.

Unfortunately, cars and AI are not the only places where we(humanity) are attempting to skip evolution.  One such effort is particularly vexing to me.  The approximate cost so far of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) is $10billion.  That covers development, manufacture, launch, and ongoing operations.  If you happen to be as much of a tech nerd as I am, you will be aware of the massive amount of science that continues to be done on the data being provided by JWST. OTOH, the NASA Artemis program cost has been estimated at approximately $100billion through 2025.  Four really nice people got to take some pretty kewl photos with their mobile phones.  A rough seat of the pants analysis suggests we paid ten times more for a ten thousandth of the science.  Surely I cannot be the only one that sees the problem with this.

A significant percentage of the Artemis cost has to do with the fact that it carried humans and they were nice enough people that we wanted to bring them back safely.  Imagine how much of that cost could have been eliminated if we did not need any life support for the mission.  Imagine that we had included a number of sensors and then left the capsule/sensors in orbit around the Moon.  We could be receiving scientifically valuable data for months or years to come (and sure, yea, occasionally some really pretty pictures of Earth-rise).  Even if we wanted to drop another robot (or five) on the surface, according to the size and complexity, it would be vastly less expensive than Artemis.

I am not a space Luddite either.  I simply believe that an awful lot of what we get from sending astronauts to space would be better done by automated systems.  Astronauts are hugely important for figuring out how going to space affects astronauts.  Other than that, most of what they do, not all by any stretch, could be done less expensively by automation. With the exception of physical sample recovery, the automated systems would not need to be brought back which is itself a significant expenditure.  Rather than wait for a conveniently timed and placed asteroid strike, we could crash the automated craft into the surface for science as we have done on some other missions.

Once we know more about space and science advances in other arenas, we might choose to spend the money to launch humans on extended missions.  For the foreseeable future however, it is my considered opinion that automated missions - whether to the Moon or other bodies or Lagrange points - make far more fiscal AND scientific sense.  Humans and human habitable constructs are not yet ready to do long term work in space and I think our insistence on trying to force the issue is actually retarding our scientific advancement.

I sent everything before this paragraph to a scientist friend to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything out and was reminded that some of the things NASA and other humans do is for marketing.  The engineering aspects of my background lead me to find marketing to be a necessary evil but still an evil. Without humans in the story, the argument goes, other humans will lose interest and will not want tax dollars spent on it. I cannot argue effectively against that but I can say that marketing that increases the costs by a factor of 10 over the actual project costs is something I can and will argue against.  Again, my opposition is rooted in the effort to skip the orderly evolution of a given science.  When it is time, when we are ready, when the science justifies the fiscal and physical risk, I am all in.  For now, I think we need a lot more robotic additives before we declare the mix of space travel ingredients to be soup.

Lying For The Sake of Lying

I asked Google Gemini if the White House Ballroom has ever hosted the WHCD.  Obviously, I was curious because immediately following the latest "event" Felon47 harangued about the fact that such an attempt could not happen in the event space he is attempting illegally construct after having illegally destructed the East Wing.  

If one were to look for an active and recent example of a non-sequitur, this is it.  The ballroom he wants built would not have affected the WHCD in the least.  Felon47 will always attempt to find a way to lie to you.  He doesn't care if it makes sense, he doesn't care if it is relevant, he doesn't care if most of us know it is a lie.  As long as he gets to lie to those that are willing to contort their logic and morals to accommodate him, he is willing to lie to them.

Everything that follows is the response I got from Google.  Feel free to do your own research.

 The short answer is no. Historically, the White House has never hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) in any of its rooms, including the East Room (which is the closest thing to a "ballroom" the historic residence has).

Here is the breakdown of why that is and how the current landscape is changing:

1. The Separation of Church and State (and Media)

The WHCD is organized by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), which is an independent organization of journalists. To maintain a symbolic and professional distance from the administration they cover, the dinner is traditionally held at a neutral, third-party venue.

2. The Capacity Issue

The White House simply hasn't had a room large enough to accommodate the modern dinner.

• The East Room: The largest room in the Executive Residence, it can only seat about 200 guests for dinner.

• The WHCD Scale: The dinner typically draws over 2,500 attendees. For decades, this has made the Washington Hilton (specifically its "International Ballroom") the default home for the event, as it is one of the few spaces in D.C. that can handle the security and size requirements.

3. Recent Developments (2025–2026)

As of early 2026, there has been significant news regarding a "White House Ballroom." President Trump has been pushing for the construction of a new, 90,000-square-foot State Ballroom as part of a modernized East Wing.

Following a security incident at the April 2026 WHCD held at the Washington Hilton, the administration has cited the event's safety risks as a primary reason to move such large-scale gatherings onto the secure grounds of the White House. However, the WHCA has traditionally resisted moving the dinner to the White House to preserve its independence.

Summary of Locations

Era	Typical Venue
1921 (First Dinner)	Arlington Hotel
Mid-20th Century	Various (Willard Hotel, Statler Hilton)
Modern Era	Washington Hilton (The "Hinckley" Hilton)
White House?	Never. Only used for State Dinners, not the WHCD.

The Biggest Lie

      It is an old joke.  Well, technically it is several old jokes.  

Since I am, to my discredit and shame, only familiar with humor traditions of Western culture and in the English language specifically, I acknowledge there may well be far more “biggest lie” jokes than I have been exposed to.

Sometimes it aint a joke.  I have heard the phrase used when humor was the absolute last thing anyone was attempting to communicate.  Sometimes usage of the phrase precedes a verbal or physical altercation.

As a general rule, my experience with the phrase is limited to those two use cases.  It is used either as a joke or as a threat.  That changes today.  Okay, perhaps “today” is minorly disingenuous but, I assure you it is a recent change.

The ironic thing is that I have a maxim for pretty much my entire life that is as deserving of the description “the biggest lie” if anything is.  “All’s fair in love and war” is that maxim.  Until recently I gave it no thought at all.  That lack of thought was justified (in my mind) by the blatant wrongness of the claim.  Anyone who has served in the military knows full well that war has all kinds of rules.  There are also traditions and habits and absolute no nos.  No matter how much you love someone, inflicting physical pain is frowned upon.  Taking fiscal advantage of your love interest is not something you do to impress their family.  Making promises you have no intention of keeping is not typically seen as a loving act.  As it turns out, there are in fact rules in love and war.  There are things that are considered unfair or out of bounds in love, war or business.

All of that is knowledge I would expect most any human to have.  Perhaps we might have to think specifically about a given situation but eventually, we will come to understand that regardless of where you are or what you are doing, there are actions that are unacceptable.  Most every human and plenty of entities in other species appear to know this.  But not Felon47.

A look at Donald John Trump’s life, casual or indepth, leads one inescapably to the conclusion that he actually, honestly lives his life in such a manner as to indicate absolute belief in that flawed maxim.  He openly expresses the desire for those subordinate to him to ignore the laws, local, state, national or international, and carry out his orders or follow his suggestions.  He had sexual affairs with girls or women even while he was ostensibly in monogamous relationships.  He appears to have done it in every allegedly committed relationship he has been in.  It looks for all the world that he fully believes that “All is fair in love and war,”  The evidence that gives lie to the maxim for the majority of humanity, has had no apparent effect on him.

I am starting to think that the reason he lies so frequently and completely is rooted in the fact that he believes whatever he does is perfectly fine within the arenas of love, war, and business.  I suppose I could point out just how incredibly flawed such thinking is but, the other thing that Felon47 demonstrates is a slogan from one of my biker tee shirts.  “If I have to explain it, you wouldn’t understand”.   A different quote may be even more relevant here  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary (also applicable: power) depends on his not understanding it."

Exponential Irony

As a young, innocent and ignorant peon in the USN, I found myself needing and acquiring a pretty damn high security clearance.  The military is pretty good about telling you what to do and when to do it and how it should be done.  Unfortunately, the "why" is frequently a parental-esque "because I said so."

A result of this is that my understanding of what might disqualify one for such a clearance was flawed.  Time, experience, scuttlebutt(read: gossip) and observation did a fairly good job of filling in the blanks for me and correcting my fallacious assumptions.

Being a preacher's kid in a family that all but lived at the church, there was damn near nothing in my personal history that could have disqualified me - or so I thought.  Well after I had my clearance, I spoke with others who also had received clearances and was astonished to learn they had admitted to things in their interviews that I had believed would be immediate disqualifications.  They had admitted they had smoked pot, masturbated, associated with felons etc etc.  They got clearances anyway.

While honesty requires me to admit that it took a while to put it all together, eventually I was made to understand that quite frequently it was not the act that was disqualifying.  It was an effort to hid the act that got folk into trouble.  See, if you want badly enough to keep something hidden, you become a prime target for foreign intelligence operatives or even our home grown malintentioned citizens.  They will find out just how badly you want to keep your secrets secret.  OTOH, if you just openly admit to having screwed your wife's cousin, in theory no one can use that information to pressure you into divulging classified information.

And so we get to the ironical aspect of the essay.  If someone wanted a clearance but had had a close and long-term friendship with a known and convicted pedophile, they might choose to attempt to minimize that information.  They might reasonably choose to hide the friendship especially if the individual is no longer in their social circle for whatever reason.  That effort, the choice to hide something negative of significance, would easily be enough to disqualify them for a clearance if the investigator knows of it or even just suspects.

Felon47 would not be able to get a clearance via the path that I used to get a clearance.  However, as POTUS, he has the ultimate national control over access to classified material.  His own access to our most classified information is an irony of near infinite scope.  An individual who could not survive the process I went through is now the national ultimate authority on who gets access to classified information.  I am not of the opinion that him having that power has been good for the nation.  

I am guessing that Putin, Orban, Netanyahu and associated dictatorial asswipes are pretty comfortable with it.  I am hugely disappointed that so many of those I served with and those who were protected by my service, are so willing to turn our national secrets over to one who demands complete loyalty while offering no loyalty whatsoever to anything that is not money or power.

I feel the urge to remind everyone that the USA is by no means the only nation with an intelligence apparatus.  While POTUS is the ultimate classifying authority in this nation, he has no authority whatsoever over the information generated by and classified by other nations.  Whether or not “we” feel like it is justified (and for the record, I do), those who would normally share their intel with this nation are being a lot more circumspect.  Rather obviously, that does not make our nation more secure. 

If the foreigners should suspect that others in the misadministration have adopted the Dear Leader’s casual attitude about intel from other nations, for their own security they MUST stop sharing with the USA.

The final shoe to drop may never actually drop but the potential is too juicy to ignore.  Those who have shown themselves to be fine with the manner in which this misadministration handles classified information regardless of the source, could quite feasibly find themselves no longer able to get clearance once some level of sanity is restored to our political system.  That potential does the heavy lifting of letting me sleep comfortably.

The Record is Crooked

See, here's the thing, given the area where Jesus would have lived, I would suggest that Felon47 looks as much like the actual Christ probably looked as does the typical depiction of the icon in the Western world. (which is to say, not at all)

As much as I hate to cut the global menace any slack, if a depiction of Jesus as a blue-eyed, fair-skinned guy with straight blonde(ish) hair doesn't offend you, then seeing Twitler as the Christ is just you picking and choosing what lie you prefer.

Not Too Old To Learn

 WE ARE LOOSING

TO BLACKS, THEY ACT MATURE

Soooooooo, the video linked below showed up in my feed with the two lines quoted above, visible on the video.  Being true and honest about my own pedantic assholeishness, I ignored it.  

Abusing words needlessly is a good way to make sure I ignore a given video or essay.  Be it wrong, stupid or something else, I prejudge frequently on the basis of language.  Oddly enough, I can forgive honest ignorance.  TBF, I do not wish to be held responsible for things I actually and honestly do not know.  As such, I cannot in good conscience hold others responsible for things they honestly do not know. 

I have no real idea who added those words to the video.  I am at this stage, pretty damn sure it was not the speaker featured in the video.  I encountered the video several times prior to actually watching it.  However, when a "trusted" source recommended it, I thought I would watch at least a couple of minutes which should be sufficient to justify my casual dismissal.  It turned out that the speaker was an author I paid a lot of attention to in the early days of the internet/Web.  I watched it in its entirety and strongly suggest you do as well.  

Seriously, stop what you are doing and pay attention to this video.

Not Normal

 It is incredibly atypical for me to agree fully with anyone on just damn near anything.  That is somewhat intentional.  It makes me very nervous for everyone to agree with me - it makes me assume I got something horribly wrong.

So you should absolutely take it seriously that I am struggling to find something to disagree with in my friend's post on Substack.  You should go read it in full and point out where I should be in opposition since my reflexively argumentative nature is apparently malfunctioning.

You may want to read other of his musings and you could even find yourself wanting to subscribe.  Click this link and share it if you feel so inspired.

Aeronautical Prevarication

 I own weapons. Several as a matter of fact.  Some are traditional martial arts weapons.  Some are my own improvisation.  Some, are firearms.  Some are projectile weapons that do not require chemical explosions.

I legally own and possess those because I am a law-abiding citizen and I can.  All of that to say that my ability to own, possess and wield weapons has not been obliterated in the recent or distant past.

I am 99.999999999999999999999999% sure that if I knew the exact flight path and the exact time and intensely practiced for a year, nothing in my (small) personal arsenal could bring down an F15 or an A10.

No sane person needed the confirmation that Felon47 is an obligate liar but that confirmation is here anyway.   Obliterated weapons systems or obliterated military capacity would not be any better at bringing down either of those warplanes than I am.  Yet, both of them went down and other aircraft have taken fire.

For no reason or for any reason at all, Felon47's first impulse is to lie to you.  (unfortunately it is also his second, third, fourth ad infinitum impulse)

Its Always Darkest, Just Before It Goes Completely Black

 I understand the temptation to cheer at the dismissal of senior misadmistration officials.

But we need to be honest with ourselves. The replacements are always more evil and less competent - even when it seems like no one could possibly be.

Fool Me Twice

 I am not a youngster.  My corporeal form has circled the Sun 70+ times.  Depending on when exactly during those rotations you approached me, there is a solidly high probability that you could well have found me being somewhat less than serious.

Yea, I like to joke around.  Practical jokes, funny memes, satire, or whatever else I thought someone would laugh at are all things you might have to suffer through interacting with me.  This year though, this year is different.  Well, technically this month is different.  I might even suggest that it is just today that is different.  I mean, I said "today" but really, I should say "this date".

Today is 4/1, April the first.  the 91st day of the year.  Today is April Fools Day.  Traditionally, this is a day for practical jokes, outrageous lies and in general a good natured exploration into the gullibility of humans. 

I have been on both sides of the April Fools silliness.  There have been years when I was working enough that I did not notice the date and as a result, fell prey to those paying more attention.  Other years, I was the asshole enjoying the mild discomfort of those trying to give their sense of humor a break.

Today was different though.  For the first April Fools in my memory, I neither saw nor proposed one single date related effort at humor.  Like others on social media, I saw some posts suggesting that what the misadministration is doing is more outrageous than anything I might come up with.  Still, I am not possessed of sufficient ego to believe that the nation would follow my humor lead so, I was prepared to observe and ideally, enjoy the efforts of others.  That didn't happen.  

Regardless of what you actually think of Felon47 and crew of incompetents, that he has reduced the level of humor in the nation (probably world).  We are more polarized and more bitter than at any point in my memory.  We have the biggest April Fool ever.

It ain't funny.

Half The Battle

 If you happen to be a news junkie, as several of those who opine on things political and cultural are, you might have noticed some of the same things I noticed.  Among those things, I have read reports of individuals who served honorably in the USA military but who were not citizens of this nation being deported.  Some of them had combat included in that honorable service.  They were deported anyway.

I have seen reports of folks who have lived in this nation for decades - raised children here, held jobs, paid taxes, and generally obeyed every law that had nothing to do with immigration.  When identified and apprehended they were unceremoniously deported.  

The federal (mis)administration currently in power has undertaken an effort to eliminate birthright citizenship.  They want citizenship to not be automatic upon being born here.  Now this is going to shock no one but, I do not agree with them.  The reason we have lawyers and judges is that the law is neither perfect nor absolute.  Extenuating circumstances exists.  I am not saying to ignore the law.  I am saying that each case should be looked at individually.  

But never mind my issues with the system as is.  I am used to having political disagreements and I understand the art of compromise.  This ain't about that.

What I want to know is the other half of the battle.  If neither military service, abiding by the laws, or being born here is enough to guarantee one citizenship, what will determine eligibility for citizenship?  Will it be wealth?  Skin tone?  Whether or not Felon47 finds you fuckable?  Seriously, what will the qualifications be?

This crew has a consistent habit of claiming something is a problem and in need of immediate banning.  Then they absolutely avoid presenting a fix or a preventative or process going forward that will not result in the same problem in a few weeks/months/years.  They do that because you let them.  I strongly suggest you stop letting them.  Whether you agree with them or not, demand a plan.  Demand that the plan be Constitutional.  Demand that the plan be feasible.  Demand that the plan be something you would be happy to put your name on.

Real Values

 Due to the lamentable lack of any surprising great things AND the lack of unforeseen horrible things, I did indeed attend the No Kings protest in Knoxville, TN.

Historically, East Tennesseans are notoriously publicly apathetic.  Even if we do love something or hate it, we would keep quiet about it.  Getting us to show up to protest something was hard.  Yesterday we showed up pretty good.

Felon47 is for reasons I will never understand, an incredibly polarizing figure.  (I fully and easily understand any hatred expressed towards him.  It is my inability to see anything in him worthy of support by an actual human that escapes my understanding.)  If there is one positive thing about him, accidental though it may be, it is that he is causing my communities to reflect and decide what our values really are.  While I remain dismayed by the number of my neighbors who appear to value greed, immorality, misogyny, dishonesty, and racism, I am also impressed by the number who have decided to publicly reject those things. 

 As I have gotten involved with Indivisible Knoxville, the local organizer of the protests, I had an assigned duty.  I was an observer/counter.  I walked the entire length of the protest with a clicker counter and attempted to get a rough count of attendees.  The snapshots and videos will have to tell the story as the crowd was quite fluid.  Folks crossed the streets and in that manner could have been counted twice or not counted at all.  I did not observe any untoward events.  No LEOs were attacked - physically or verbally.  I observed one well-behaved counter protester who was treated with respect or ignored. 

I started my counting at the official start time of the protest and was done with an hour still to go.  I attempted to count the cars honking their horns or otherwise indicating their support of the protest.  I counted the south side of the protest first and by the time I had gotten through about half of the north side, the south side appeared to have approximately doubled in number.  Again, a rough count was the best I could do.  I got about 2800 with my clicker and I estimated the final number to be better than double that.  5k - 8k is my guesstimate.

BONUS:  As an apparent accident of scheduling, the Washington D.C. Gay Men's Chorus was in town and performed a few songs enjoyed by those close enough to hear them. Click on this link for a sample.

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.