I ran into this image today from the online class I’m taking. I suspect Uncle Joe may have been reincarnated and his shadow darkens the Kremlin floors even today.
Question: How do you transition from a Stalinist dictatorship to something less terrible and maybe even faintly democratic? It’s still an open question.
Source: Movie poster of Stalin’s Funeral by Yevgeni Yevtushenko. I’d have been tempted to poke the body with a stick to make sure he was dead.
Nikita Krushchev led de-Stalinization after Stalin died but was soon replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. It is said that not much of interest happened during the Brezhnev years other than keeping up with the cold war.
Big changes finally began with Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost and perestroika, but the USSR imploded before he was finished. The Kremlin couldn’t make the centralized economy work as desired, so they shut off the lights and went home. Boris Yeltsin was the first popularly elected and reelected President of Russia from 1991 to 1999 but his tenure was checkered with successes and failures. His hand picked successor was Vladimir Putin who was later elected President. The merits of that choice is apparent in the news today.
An even better question: how does a country whose skids were greased with bribery, had zero history of democratic anything or a market economy and little if any market-related institutions make the transition? Yeah, it’s a hard problem. The Soviet security apparatus didn’t fully collapse and survives to this day, frightening as ever.
There was an old joke- the KGB headquarters in Moscow went up 7 floors and down all the way to Siberia. The gulags were substantially emptied of millions of laborers after Krushchev’s elevation, but many of the camps were retained.
For decades a population of Americans citizens have been extremely vocal about the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution and their right to bear arms. A major element to their argument is to have protection from a tyrannical government. Legislation carrying even the faintest whiff of what they spit out as “gun control” is defeated. But, that is an issue for another day.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment codifies a natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. That right to self-defense extends to both private and public threats, including self-defense against agents of a tyrannical government. Source: Google.
Well, what if that tyrannical government is now materializing? Will they even recognize it? So far it doesn’t look like it. This population is heavily invested in Trump so could that possibly blind them to the situation? Or did they just shrug and sign up to work for ICE in large numbers?
Trump and his cronies are constantly presuming authority over many areas of government that were statutorily or constitutionally understood to be outside the grasp of the executive. These people are constantly flooding the zone with acts of overreach backed by a republican SCOTUS and congress and enjoy a corrupt DoJ, DHS and, increasingly, a politicized DoD.
What does the term “liberal democracy” really mean? From Wikipedia-
Anyone who made it through 9th grade civics should have a background sufficient to realize that liberal democratic America is in existential danger. Not by violent overthrow but by a slow, painless slouch to illiberal democracy. A slouch because not enough voters will engage with money, votes or the gumption to step out and take a public stand against what is happening. A majority still have utilities, access to health care and safe neighborhoods and roads. So far the changes are rather abstract and distant for most citizens and it is easy to conclude that nothing personally serious is happening.
The US Constitution appears inadequate to provide a clear and muscular remedy against an abusive and malevolent single party control of all three houses of government. The Dems have had such control in the past, but did not seek to form an oligarchy or some dictatorial power grab. Were they just too dumb and timid to even try or is there something else? Maybe they know better.
In this country the Republicans have most of the lawyers, guns and money. But we woke liberals also have the 2nd Amendment at our disposal as well.
The reliable American MAGA/GOP fear machine shifted into overdrive on the Bad Bunny halftime show during the recent Super Bowl. Against the blinding glare of Trump’s never-ending stream of foul blather stands the latest upsurge of Christian puritanical indignation and accusations of unspeakable depravities freely broadcast over the public airwaves. A group of “conservative warriers” have been orchestrating a war dance from the corridors of Congress out into the MAGA world. Their legislative blunderbuss tactics and shrill accusations and are aimed at Bad Bunny, NBC, and the NFL.
The NFL and NBC stand accused by red state dullards of broadcasting “openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities.” The MAGA populist movement is a jealous and cantankerous mob, intolerant of competing populist stirrings including pop music stars. Roger Goodell, National Football League (NFL) commissioner, enthusiastically backed the selection of Bad Bunny according to Time. This was not a trick foisted on the NFL.
Opposition began after the announcement of the half-time entertainment lineup in 2025. Much of the backlash focused on Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican identity and his status as a Spanish speaker, with Fox News and political commentators framing the choice as anti-American.
The truly unwholesome aspect here is the extent to which American politics promotes and elects such Christian nationalist puritans to high office. Though politicians play to their home districts, their nationalist puritanical claims are broadcast widely, banking authority and credibility into their castle keep. Their words are cheap and easy to speak, but practically impossible to correct or refute. With Bible in one hand and the other reaching skyward in supplication, the sobbing preacher-man reads a verse and proclaims fealty to the invisible almighty and the President. It is at once moving and ridiculous. They know precisely what they are doing.
The Christian nationalist cult is intent on moving the US into a position where the rule of law is based on Biblical law, whatever that may be. Whatever it is, it will certainly place preachers into high-ranking, high-power positions of influence. If you listen to the TV preachers, they call for ‘Gods people’ to save America. All that matters is accelerating the return of the Savior to earth to trigger the end of times and banishment of the unworthy to a lake of molten sulfur.
I wonder if Biblical law would continue with parking tickets or tax law? If you wanted to change the easement on your property, would that be New or Old Testament, and would pastor Bob approve it?
The president’s lap dog and offensive coordinator, Mr. Stephen Miller, has been yapping about America’s supposed right to annex Greenland. The pathetic swine is going on about our role as a superpower and how we should be pushing America’s weight around. I’m faint with nausea as I write this because that is what this sickening pig does to me. I’ll try to continue.
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, said recently that Trump’s comments about Greenland and last weekend’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife will likely lead to the collapse of NATO. NATO, in case half of America was sleeping, was a big part of what kept the world from WWIII during the cold war. But hey, Trump knows better than anyone because he is rich and has nailed down the speaking patterns of an after-dinner speaker in the hotel ballroom. His third-grade intellect is sufficient for his supporters.
There are plenty of sensible people in the USA who absolutely object to what Trump is doing to our beloved homeland and by extension to the world. It appears that his vision for America is in parallel to Putin’s vision of a large and powerful Russian empire. Putin’s ethnic pride pushes him to Russify as much western territory as possible in order to balance the USA and Europe.
Trump is not buggering America by himself. Who are those pathetic souls who grease the fascist machinery behind the scenes? There must be a list of lieutenants who do the planning and conceive of the action plans. Trump is not a detail man. He is the showboat and on-air talent.
The USA elected a mouthy billionaire real estate developer as president- twice -and what is he doing? He is looking for land to develop. He wants to repartition the world to fit his developer’s dream of having the USA pay for his indelible mark on monuments and in future history books. Another one of his businesses is the sale or leasing of his brand- TRUMP. He’ll plaster his brand without fear of recourse because we’ll let him do it. For crying out loud, he is planning to build a triumphal arch. And his supporters continue to tingle in excitement over his feats of strength and disregard for his detractors.
While Trump is casting societal norms into the ditch, we law abiding citizens must tolerate his dishonesty and incompetent mishandling of our historic nation. We tolerate it because we have respect for the constitution and the rule of law. He was twice elected to high office and we have respected his wins. The founders did not anticipate the ultraconservative majority that got elected or appointed to SCOTUS and how the country might be taken down one wall at a time.
Not only does #47 skirt the law but the news media, the fourth estate, who have previously tried to live up to their role in civic life are now conspicuously silent. The founders could not have anticipated the magnitude of trouble electronic media have contributed to a civically immature population.
It is well past time for us by the millions to take to the streets in lengthy and vigorous opposition to the current administration. We must make noise and push back in vast numbers with all of our strength. I know those who would protest with me once but not many who would do it multiple times. Arrest and reprisal must be accepted as untold millions have around the world.
America has been a land of opportunity for anyone who could summon the will power to “make it big.” Now, America is about those who have already made it big and are trying to push closer to trillionaire status. Haul up the ladder, I’m on board. Trump’s wealth has been seen as a sign of business savvy which was thought to transfer seamlessly into governing. So how did that work out?
The downfall of the United States of America is being accelerated by voters too clueless to know otherwise. Democracy is being undone by an idiocrasy from the low side of the bell curve. Citizens too stupid or too lazy to understand America’s place in the world. World history has been heavily documented so there is no excuse for civic ignorance.
Stephen Miller’s psychotic rattling of his stick in the administration’s bucket of shit in front of the White House never ceases to satisfy America’s confederation of fools. What a sad time to be alive.
After viewing an alarming report on YouTube concerning the shady situation with Microsoft’s business strategy in general and Microsoft Windows 11 in particular, I’ve decided to cross the Rubicon to Linux Ubuntu. It’s not just about what I’ve learned about Microsoft’s intrusion into my personal computer’s files. My latest update of MS Outlook ab.so.lute.ly stinks. My relearning and expectations of Windows 11 Outlook is contaminated by my prior familiarity with the previous rev. The blurred familiarity of the new version is twisted with years of habit and expectations. I’ve had enough.
I’ve been using Microsoft products since the Jurassic age of home computing, ca 1986. I refer to both “IBM” machines of that age and Apple’s McIntosh. As a result, both my entire professional and personal computer lives are deeply invested in Microsoft products, MS Word especially. I’ve heard that transfer compatibility going from Word documents to whatever Linux app is problematic, except for pdf files.
My plan is to experiment with an inexpensive laptop from Amazon with Linux Ubuntu already installed. The goal is to make a parallel assessment of Ubuntu with my personal and consulting work on MS Windows.
Remember the scene from Saving Private Ryan where a German soldier is killing an American soldier by struggling to push his bayonet into his chest on the upper floor of a building? While the German soldier is pushing the blade closer and closer, all the while he is attempting to quell the American’s panic with soft words, shushing and a pleading for him to stop resisting. It’s very disturbing and reminds me of the banality of evil.
Many companies, including Microsoft, are constructing business models that remind me of this disturbing scene. They are encouraging customers to switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 by aging out Windows 10 updates. In doing so, Windows has become a subscription service rather than your personal property in the privacy of your hard drive. Instead of buying MS windows once, you are now paying for a subscription and allowing MS to examine your files. What do they do with what they may find? Overall, they want to turn your proclivities and interests into cash through selective advertising and sales of marketing data to third parties.
They are trying to force users to use their cloud storage where they will have access to all of our data. Worse yet, their AI “helper” encourages users to ask for help that reveals what the user is thinking. That help can be in the form of rewriting your text or actually producing content for the user. The AI system resides in one of their data centers and who knows what kind of analysis and business planning that results in.
Why is it that many people seem to believe that government is inherently bad and businesses are inherently good, or at least preferable? Why distrust government yet throw your faith into free market capitalism? At the very least, the US government as it has been operated up to now is often regulated to afford at least some transparency and accountability. Does business have such transparency? Politicians can, in theory, be voted out for corruption and malfeasance. But what about the shitheads who control a great many large corporations? Other than the limp-d**k approach of refusing to buy their products and services, what other leverage is there? For example, recent history is full of examples of corporations badly polluting the environment, but even with proof in hand, citizens must fight for years at high personal cost to force accountability on the polluters. Or, recall the trouble with Purdue Pharmaceuticals and their potent and addictive OxyContin. They knowingly profited from their product for years fully knowing it’s addictive potential. Even widespread addiction and death weren’t trouble enough to cause a prompt regulatory response from the gov’t. Here both Purdue and government officials were painfully reluctant to respond. Finally, there was the battle between Erin Brockovich and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) over hexavalent chromium groundwater contamination in Hinkley, CA. Detection of hexavalent chromium isn’t difficult, but nailing down accountability is, especially when it is a citizen vs a large corporation.
This approach is really about shooting fish in a barrel and is increasingly appearing on social media with advertisers pushing subscriptions rather than outright purchases. Amazon does it as well with certain food stuffs. I understand the business motivation to exchange a single larger sale for monthly payments of smaller dollar amounts over time. This works best when charges are hidden in your credit card statements disguised as lengthy character strings rather than intelligible names. Also, that particular human frailty of losing track of what you are paying for by credit card is a real issue for people. Do we actually think that the C-Suite knobs who oversee their sales operations haven’t thought of this? They know exactly what they are doing.
Ostensibly, the “genius” of the free market is to maximize the efficient use of capital. Obviously, history bears (or bares?) out that there is much evidence for this assertion. The downside of this is that decisions contrary to your personal choice are made by others who decide what efficiencies that you will pay for while they retain their margins.
Economics isn’t a type of physics resting on the space-time continuum. It is a social science that uses some math for persuasion.
Do you want to produce a product that results in a few single-item sales of a dollar each or a product that produces a larger number of nickels over time? Obviously, it depends on the product.
Like hundreds of millions of others, I have helped to keep Microsoft afloat and remain a great investment for their stockholders. We’ve done our part. But now it is time to say “so long and thanks for all of the fish.”
The Fearless Overlord of the American Oligarchy, DJT, has resurfaced the Greenland question again. Louisiana’s Republican governor Jeff Landry has been anointed by Trump to a volunteer position as Special Envoy to Greenland. This move was promptly condemned by both the EU President and Denmark, unsurprisingly.
Resembling the many tragic leaders in history, Trump keeps nattering on about the need to annex Greenland for national security. The claim of national security is a kind of universal excuse that is solemnly expressed but rarely explained. We understand that an explanation might reveal the poker hand we are playing- We get it. But like a when a hammer looks around and sees only nails, what does a property developer see when he pans his orange face across a large, underdeveloped island? Bingo!!
We shouldn’t forget that Trump has been in the business of selling his name as a brand for a long time. He knows the value of an attractive brand and is not the least bit shy about plastering his family name as far and wide as possible. Look at the recently renamed “Trump Kennedy” Center in DC where he is the CEO. His coterie of sycophants are constantly trying to outdo each other with ever increasing levels of ass-kissing. Whatever shame there might have been in self-promotion is long gone.
The thing is that when a businessman who was in the business of promoting his brand begins to label government property with that brand, isn’t that a conflict of interest? His escape must be that others are slapping the brand on buildings, not him. There isn’t a single milligram of shame in him that would request that such naming happen only after he passes.
An interesting thing is that while the Trump administration is officially contemptuous of global climate change, a particular result of climate change must come about. In order to extract mineral wealth from below the ice –whatever that might be– global warming will be needed to melt the Greenland ice cap to expose that mineral wealth.
However, the motivation goes far beyond minerals. Access to the Arctic Ocean and whatever crude oil that may be pumped out from below the ocean floor is up for grabs. A US shoreline on the Arctic Ocean supports arctic military access as well as access to the new Northwest Passage that is opening up to commerce.
A surprise to precisely no one, annexing Greenland is about a new phase of American hegemony and extending the reach of military power. Perhaps Greenland is the new Manifest Destiny in the eyes of the rancid White House clique running American government just now.
I previously mentioned American hegemony. The USA has been a leading world power since the conclusion of WWII. There are presently two other powers who desire this status and are happy to help the USA to topple over as hegemon. The post WWII track record of the American hegemon is spotty at best and since the election of Trump, has begun an abrupt nosedive.
Trump’s slogan “America First” is catchy and patriotic-sounding and appeals to us as citizens of an isolated country bounded by two expansive oceans. Unlike a great many other countries, the USA has a temperate climate, warm deepwater ports, and abundant fertile farmland, minerals and lumber. Importantly, the USA had a capitalistic economic establishment favoring industrialization as a mostly democratic republic. In combination, all of this allowed the USA to rapidly tool-up after Pearl Harbor and back its fighting forces with massive quantities of war materiel and enter WWII cocked and loaded for bear. Fascism was defeated in Europe and the Pacific, and we even helped our defeated enemies get back on their feet.
In my lifetime, I’ve heard many fellow citizens try to explain our victories in WWII as the result of some unique attribute of American clean living and superior moral fiber. Never mentioned are the countries who also had clean living and high moral fiber but were unable to summon the resources to assemble a powerful war machine. American successes in WWII greatly relied on abundant natural resources, an existing industrial base and oceans that prevented tanks and troops from marching across our borders.
Today, the tell-tale voices of fascism are surfacing around the USA. People who had previously voted republican and strutted around claiming to be patriotic citizens are now saying that maybe democracy doesn’t work and an authoritarian government is needed. Let Trump be Trump!
WWII veterans and their offspring have come, passed away or retired by now in 2025. They brought a kind of optimism and energy to the growth of the USA. Technological modernism was the answer to all the ills of society. What was needed was an electrified, push button life of convenience.
If you look deep enough into virtually any peacetime period of American history, you’ll find reports of conflict, malfeasance, criminality and a myriad of dirty political dealings for the time. This represents the true baseline, ground state of America. This is bumpy ground but normal. My point is that before we indulge in self-flagellation and unrealistic expectations of our society, we should have a good think about what “normal” is actually comprised of. The inability to deal with exponential growth, uncertainty and a bit of disorder only cripples us.
Ok, so there is this Harvard professor named Avi Loeb who attracts media attention with his suggestions that a new comet or asteroid may be an alien spaceship, especially if we’re sure that it is from outside our solar system. Any given new object arriving from “way out there” has the possibility of being made and operated by extraterrestrials. Yes, it is a remote possibility, but still non-zero.
What gets my attention is how his pronouncements of possible alien spaceships are leapt upon by media who publish and promote with breathless and fanciful headlines. Ok, media are in a 24 hour or less news cycle and feel the need obligation to publish a story with breathtaking headlines. Or at least the writer of the story intends it will attract the reader’s engagement,
Is the professor just looney or is there method to his madness? Perhaps his personal threshold for signal to noise ratios is set just a bit too low. I just don’t know.
With this, however, the ET credibility gap is bridged by the fact that a professor at Harvard University is making the statement. This affords instant credibility because, as we all know, God himself spends Thursday afternoons at Harvard and what is more sanctified than a tenured Harvard faculty member? In fairness, it must be said that God spends Thursday mornings across town at MIT, though half-assed claims of ETs are a bit rarer from there.
As Carl Sagan or someone else once said, incredible claims require incredible evidence. In this example, where was the incredible evidence? Extremely distant, small and faint objects detectable only in the visible part of the spectrum with very sensitive equipment tend to reveal only faint evidence. Even if some kind of signal can be discriminated, would aliens want to broadcast their appearance to the whole flippin’ solar system straight away?
For myself, if there were aliens strapped inside this object, the more interesting problem is how did they manage to cross interstellar space in a way consistent with sufficient fuel for their propulsion system and critical supplies?
My faint mockery of the Harvard professor is now complete. Time to move on.
Perhaps aliens have picked up our radio transmissions, remembering that TV transmission is also a kind of radio transmission. Amplitude modulated transmissions, AM, would be easiest to investigate since it is only a narrow carrier frequency that is modulated by wave amplitude.
A radio signal modulated in two ways- AM and FM. Source: Wikipedia.
Black and white television used AM for video and FM for sound. AM is the easiest to understand, but the FM signals are quite different. Frequency modulation, FM, takes a fixed carrier frequency and combines it with signal that is near the carrier frequency, but the frequency is modulated in a way that the sum of the carrier and sound frequencies combine in such a way that the combined carrier and sound signals produce peaks and valleys resulting from combining two signals of somewhat different frequencies. The peaks of the carrier frequency end up adding or subtracting with the other signal.
AM receiving equipment has difficulty discriminating between signal by variable amplitude noise. Lightning or other sources of radio frequency energy easily interfere with the clarity of the signal. If you have listened to an AM radio station in stormy weather, you know how interfering lightning can be.
FM, on the other hand, is from the addition of a set carrier frequency plus a variable frequency sound signal. Electrical mechanisms that produce RF noise generally do not produce an FM signal, thus the quiet sound of FM reception.
Interlacing raster scan lines on a TV screen. Alien receivers of TV signals would have to assemble images from an interlacing raster scan signal with a proper sweep frequency across the screen. Image: Wikipedia.
This is a superficial explanationof television. Television images of the Lucy show, or the Three Stooges received by aliens has been speculated on to our great amusement, but we should understand that a transmitted TV signal is generated taking into account of specifically how it will be read. On a monochrome TV receiver screen, the picture is produced by interlacing two half vertical images alternating every 60th of a second so a whole image is received by our retinas every 30th of a second exploiting our persistence of vision to prevent flickering images. Below 30 frames per second, the images begin to flicker. Aiding in this is the fact that the phosphors in the picture tube glow momentarily after the beam has passed. In order to produce images from a radio frequency signal, this method would first have to be recognized then a receiver built by the aliens to “decode” the signal. Also, the aliens would have to recognize that the analog information is visual in nature and presented as an interlaced raster scan on some kind of display. Misinterpretation of our signals as hostile in nature would be avoided, hopefully.
Ok, movie projection just for fun
The passage of movie film through a movie projector is at 24 frames per second but flickering is avoided by projecting each frame twice to give a frame rate of 48. The classic sound of a movie projector results from the advancing of each frame past the shutter, stopping the film momentarily while the shutter rotates in the light beam and shines light through the frame twice. Slack is built into the continuous flow of film through the projector using loops of film above and below the aperture and shutter to allow continuous movement of the film but also stopping for 1/24th of a second so that a steady image is projected twice per frame. The source of the flickering sound is in large part from the upper and lower loops jumping up and down every 1/24th of a second.
If only we’d ship reels of movie film to the aliens, they could better understand us. For starters, I’d suggest a recent Godzilla movie.
The essential parts of a movie projector. Note the loops above and below the shutter. Source: Smithsonian.
You’ve probably heard that #47 has asked the Pentagon to be ready for action. According to an article in The Hill, President #47 has labeled Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern”, or CPC. This designation stems from news that Islamic terrorists are allegedly attacking Nigerian Christians. A group of approximately 30 American Christian religious leaders and a few politicians like Ted Cruz and Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) as well as the entertainers Nicki Minaj and Bill Maher have made a convincing enough case for the President to make the CPC declaration.
The [CPC] designation compels the president to consult with the designated government, draft up a foreign policy action plan, and consult with Congress about implementation. [H.R.2431 — 105th Congress (1997-1998) within 90 days.] –Laura Kelly – 11/03/25, The Hill
If you read H.R. 2431 (2018), you’ll find:
Title IV: Presidential Actions – Subtitle I: Targeted Responses to Violations of Religious Freedom Abroad – Directs the President, for each foreign country in which the government engages in or tolerates violations of religious freedom (including particularly severe violations), to oppose such violations by taking certain actions and promoting the right to freedom of religion in that country. [emphasis mine]
(Sec. 405) Specifies among the actions the President maytake: (1) public condemnation; (2) delay or cancellation of scientific and cultural exchanges; (3) withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of U.S. development assistance and U.S. security assistance; (4) instruction of U.S. executive directors of international financial institutions to vote against loans primarily benefiting the foreign government responsible for such violations; (5) restrictions on the issuance of licenses to export any goods or technology to such foreign government; (6) prohibition against the making, guaranteeing, or insuring of loans, or extension of credit by certain U.S. financial institutions to the violating government; and (7) prohibition of U.S. Government procurement of goods or services from such government. Provides for: (1) commensurate actions in substitution for any of the above presidential actions; and (2) binding agreements with foreign governments obliging them to cease, or take substantial steps to address and phase out, the acts, policies, or practices constituting violations of religious freedom.
(Sec. 407) Authorizes the President to waive the requirements of this Act if certain conditions are met.
(Sec. 410) Prohibits judicial review of presidential actions or agency actions taken under this Act.
My reading of Title IV of H.R. 2431 is that the President is compelled to take certain actions against Nigeria. While taking no action does not seem to be specifically barred, I didn’t see it listed as an option.
The potential threat by the President is in sending an expeditionary military force to Nigeria to stop the violence on Christians. According to Wikipedia, the population (2023) of Nigeria is estimated at 236,747,130 people. Unless the terrorists are wearing military uniforms, how will our troops find them and what’s to prevent a guerrilla war with the terrorists gradually taking bites out of our soldiers as they did in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan? Guerilla warfare has time and again proven successful against superior military forces.
America does not need another distant land war … this time in west-central Africa with guerilla fighters in the jungle. Peace through superior firepower only works if you can find the targets. Perhaps we should call in favors from Israeli special forces?
Finally, conflict between religions is a conflict between ideas. When both sides believe that they have authority based on the supernatural, short of religious conversion or death how do you decisively win such a war? A war of attrition, perhaps?
As a military conflict progresses, what is to prevent escalation on the part of US forces. Or is this just to be the work of a few military advisors? Remember, that is how the US stumbled into the Viet Nam war.
Secretary of Defense Hegseth and the public affairs office with the Department of War in Washington, DC, announced late Friday that 2 policy changes will go into effect on January 1, 2026, both relating to the military dress code. First, unless otherwise specified, Fridays will become casual Friday. Second, ties worn by service members will be red and extra-long. This change has been in the works since 2016.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was rushed from the White House outhouse to the hospital late Friday evening for a severe RCI, Rectal-Cranial Inversion. Members of his immediate family said only that this came as no surprise.
A spokesman for President Trump said that the East Wing conversion has already gone over budget owing to the late addition of state-of-the-art-secret doors and passageways. The secret doors are designed for the quiet removal of foreign guests who refuse to speak English.
The White House Office of Global Disruption has announced the decision to rename an offensive digit. It has been named “Trump” and it replaces the name “five”. MAGA rejoiced in the elimination of the Antifa-approved name five, e.g. trump, trumpteen or trump thousand trump hundred and trumptytrump. When asked whether or not this is a wise move, Trump replied that someone said that this will be the greatest change ever in mathematics.
Note: This essay is written mostly for a foreign audience whose members may lack a more nuanced view of America if only by virtue of distance or language.
The awful shooting in Michigan recently as well as other shootings in the last several days are a reminder- as if we need it- that this mass shooting business is not a bug but rather a feature of current American culture. It is yet more male violence. So far, Americans have failed to hold males culpable for this trend. The way we raise men in general needs to be rejiggered to produce better citizens overall. Make no mistake, there are a great many good and decent fellas in the US- maybe most of us- but a minority are quite problematic.
Surely there must be a way to address this matter without government interference. This is in large part a civics problem. The question is this: How can we make everyone better citizens, men especially?
A great many US citizens are forced to endure gun violence because any argument that might impede any aspect of anyone’s ability to own a gun is met with howls of indignation and angry hand waving arguments based on the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. Okay, fine. Conservative politicians are loathe to touch this electrified 3rd rail of politics. Candidates for the US House of Representatives will sometime post pictures of themselves in ads holding a firearm with a flag somewhere in the picture. This is meant to assure conservative voters that they as patriots will uphold the 2nd Amendment to the US constitution. I understand this and I cannot believe that any liberal politician could successfully part gun owners with their guns. There would be shooting. The government confiscating American guns is in no way politically feasible.
I also support anyone’s right to stand in a pool of gasoline and play with matches, barring any violation of local ordinances of course.
For the most part, school killings were unusual prior to the Columbine shootings in 1999. What has changed? One notable change relates to the emergence of smart phones and the internet. According to Wikipedia-
Below is a graphic from the K-12 Shooting Database. Of course, in the USA K-12 refers to the 13 years of basic education all children receive in public and private schools.
Source: K-12 Shooting Database. The Mormon church shooting or other recent shootings in public places aren’t part of this data set.
If you wade into the data, you’ll find that the definition of ‘mass shooting’ might vary a bit. Sometimes the definition refers to 3 or more deaths, but for the most part there is no agreed upon definition.
As a kid I recall exploring with a .22 caliber rifle out in a grassy river bottom. Maybe it is just me, but I was always itching for an excuse to fire the gun at something, maybe even a badger or a fish. I never shot a badger or a fish, thankfully. I’m only saying that possessing a gun and ammo can gave me a sense of power and authority. My imagination tells me that there are others.
These mass shootings are the status quo and usually fail to generate more than a day or two of concern for most Americans. Except for Charlie Kirk. Thoughts and prayers are offered by many, but to no useful end so far. Flowers and stuffed animals are left at the crime scene, but most people return to their streaming episodes of TV with gunplay being central to the show.
Americans have a fascination with murder as a plot line for their entertainment. Hollywood feigns some concern over the violence but continues to bang out more grotesque violence in their creations. As much as actors would like to think, the artistic qualities of film are no more than secondary. A movie project is much like a speculative construction project- plans are made, money is secured, contractors are hired and the building project is begun. The whole thing is based on a fair probability that eventual sale of the building will sell at a healthy profit. It is a wager made by people who believe that they understand the market in the near future.
Investors in a movie or TV series also bet on a spec project where their money is gathered on the guess that the production will be a hit and rake in profits. Whereas a building project depends on scarcity in the real estate market and vanity to some extent, a movie project is all about vanity. Investors believe that they alone can select a project likely to be profitable. Directors and writers believe that their work product will put butts in seats or eyeballs on the TV screens. In film, the artistic elements are complex and expensive. However, the artistic sensibilities of audiences are fickle at best.
All of this leads to a critical point. Spec buildings and movies both rely on the notion that if you build it, customers will come. Buildings can be designed and located in appealing ways to attract buyers. Movies can be produced with stars, popular directors, and the myriad specialists who put a successful film together. So, why would investors back a movie project that lacks large scale appeal to audiences? If gunplay or other violence puts butts in seats, investors may require it before committing funds. Writers, producers and directors understand this and may only go forward with a movie project having a minimum of violent action sequences, car chases and a bit of nudity to dial in some edginess. Very often, though, star power leads the charge to success. Stars are likely to favor certain types of movie projects with ‘action’, where action includes scenes with combat, one-on-one fighting and gunplay which add to ticket sales. Think Tom Cruise, Keano Reeves and many others
Having been in the theater exhibition business, I can verify that people will line up in droves to see a new Tom Cruise or 007 movie. The appeal of shoot- ‘em-up action movies is undeniable and bankable. So, the question is-
Why fund a movie that is less than best effort, where ‘best effort’ means attractive elements known to draw crowds? Why leave out scenes of gun violence when the public expects it?
Our citizens are programmed early on to tolerate or enjoy gun violence. Guns are used to solve conflict. Violence in entertainment is something that we have normalized by sheer repetition leading to satisfying conclusions.
The prevalence of violent video games exposes young men and kids to killing. Some deny that these games promote violence, but the enthusiastic death dealing and mayhem produced by the players is telling. People are immensely entertained by it. I’ve seen where the military even encourages its active-duty soldiers to play games with violent gunplay. That is the job of soldiers. Causing casualties is what they train to do because it is necessary. I get it.
Why were these large-scale killings scarce before 1990? For the school shootings, the hockey stick curve above shows that from about 2010, the incident count exploded until 2018 where it leveled off briefly but rapidly took off again. Has entertainment conditioned us to tolerate or even enjoy gun violence? The actual fallout from untimely death is brutal for family and friends.
Before 1990 there was an internet in its infancy, but no smart phones. Unless you had access to a computer, electronic entertainment and news had limited reach. Unlike today, a great many people were isolated from events and politics. There were only the 3 major networks plus PBS, newspapers and magazines. All suffered from time delays owing to content production complexity. The standards and practices required discipline and ‘proper’ content absent speculation and hype. There were the tabloids like the National Enquirer that indulged in gossip, but their credibility low, at least among educated people.
Today with the 24-hr. news cycle, content is broadcast immediately and most of the entire population are free to take half-baked, poorly content edited news items and crank themselves into a tizzy. Unlike the past, today producers of news content rely on ‘clicks’, ‘likes’, or other indicators of viewing to base their advertising invoices on.
Scrolling through content online is driven by our curiosity and FOMO- Fear Of Missing Out. I can personally add that it is certainly say this is true for myself. While I do enjoy ‘action‘ movies, I must occasionally remind myself that the violence on fellow humans is only a plot element. But like Jane Goodall observed in ape and chimp behaviors, our human primate behavior includes sometimes extreme violence. It’s built in and for many it lurks just below the surface, waiting to spring out.
Much of what we learn is based on observation of other people. Are we saying that civilized social norms can screen out or ignore violence in entertainment? For most mature people, the aversion to violence is strong and a 2-hour movie will not change that. But for some, the application of violence may get considerable thought. The realization that a violent act may be called for. Socially or mentally fragile people may see the application of gunplay as a plausible solution to their problem. To become a social issue, only a very few violence prone individuals are needed.
Gun violence is our own fault as Americans and will only be solved by a concerted effort in America to see violence as an undesirable aberration. We cannot expect a change of heart in the entertainment business. As long as there is profit in violence, they will continue to produce it.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
