Category Archives: Current Events

The Tyrannical Gov’t is Here. Where is the NRA?

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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-

It is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: elections between or among multiple distinct political parties; a separation of powers into different branches of government; the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society; a market economy with private property; universal suffrage; and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all citizens. Substantive democracy refers to substantive rights and substantive laws, which can include substantive equality,[2] the equality of outcome for subgroups in society.[3][4] Liberal democracy emphasizes the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a system of checks and balances between branches of government. Multi-party systems with at least two persistent, viable political parties are characteristic of liberal democracies. 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.

“Unspeakable Depravities”

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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?

What a strange way to run the universe.

Eastern European History

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In an effort to understand just what the hell is the deal with Russia, I enrolled in a university extension school spring semester course to study Eastern European history as it relates to capitalism and communism. It concerns the interwar period between WWI and WWII and why Eastern Europe adopted Soviet-style communism. Being from central USA, I’m familiar with much of the two world wars but only to the extent focused on histories written from the western allies’ viewpoint. This is the normal condition for most Americans.

Western European history, arbitrarily dating back to the Romans, is highly complex in the sense that the entire western Eurasian land mass has been repeatedly settled, conquered, and partitioned into empires, kingdoms, and duchies. The inevitable intermingling of cultures, languages, trade, and military might has combined to paint the map of today. Coastal nations had the advantage of access to fisheries and trade across long distances. On the downside, however, coasts were subject to easy invasion and wars of conquest.

This wall is covered and overprinted with diverse messages. So too is the Eurasian landmass overprinted with fragmented, missing and overlapping cultural and political domains over the last several millennia.

Much of Eastern Europe retains a strong Slavic ethnic identity. Along with the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church still holds a strong position in many regions, including Russia. Putin even has the cooperation of the Eastern Orthodox Church in his effort to promote his agenda and propaganda at all levels in Russia.

In addition to Slavic and other ethnic identities, Eastern Europe and Russia have been isolated from much of the world by distance, economics, and the high level of modernism that Western Europe embraced. Tsar Peter the Great was aware of the more advanced nature of Western Europe and spent time there in order to gather ideas for modernizing Russia, particularly in the area of naval ships.

The landlocked or nearly landlocked nations of Eastern Europe lacked ice-free, warm water ports, not just limiting trade and shipbuilding but also economic exchange with more distant parts of the world. The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, England, Rome, Portugal, and Spain in particular, established distant colonies and trade, generating wealth and power. With wealth, a kingdom acquires military strength and the ability to project power and conquest in resource-rich territories within just months or weeks of sailing time.

Conquest and the material wealth it brought was critical not only for an empire or monarchy to maintain or expand its holdings but also for self-defense from marauding armies looking for their own conquest. The various kingdoms, duchies, and empires were not entirely independent entities. The custom of the royal families to intermarry across empires and kingdoms assured continuity of the ruling families and wealth in the royal houses. This familial connection led to many alliances and specific choices in dividing up land.

The question of “what’s the deal with Russia” is about how it came to be that Russia is remote and standoffish to the point of being endlessly hostile and paranoid about the West. To American eyes like mine, the attitude Russia has about the West is peculiar and originates from … what? Even if Russia did not suffer overland invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, would they be any less paranoid? They would have less historical invasion baggage to drag along in some ways, but would other tragedies have befallen them? Impossible to say. It is fair to say that the Bolsheviks were keen on global-scale revolution and widespread implementation of Soviet socialism. They were not without imperialistic enthusiasm themselves.

President Putin continues to press the rhetorical but incendive argument about how the West is desirous of their resources. It is pitched as a clear and present danger to Russia. The West, he intimates, is crawling with greedy and perverted imperialists who want nothing more than to steal Mother Russia’s oil & gas, minerals, uranium, and timber. Any leader in any country could get mileage from this argument, and Vladdy-buck is pumping this handle with gusto.

The main thesis of my history class is that had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union, the spread of Soviet conquest to its western frontier would not have happened. I’ll write more as this topic unfolds in class.

Apology to the World

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I hope that peoples of the world understand that America’s president, Mr. Trump, is mightily disliked in the US and his opposition is only growing. His behavior at Davos in particular was humiliating for a growing majority of my countrymen. On behalf of the millions of Trump opponents, please understand that this won’t last forever and that we regret that our friends and allies have been exposed to this blithering idiot.

The Republican party has surrounded him in exchange for political protection and votes, but lately Republican congresspeople have been jumping off the MAGA barge like rats in a fire. While he crosses over every red line and is excused by his party, the rest of the country is obeying the laws and norms of our national heritage. While he wreaks havoc on everything he touches, he tries to rule by decree. This is dictator behavior.

Alienating America’s friends and NATO allies while threatening annexation of sovereign nations can only be the work of a greedy and deeply ignorant man. On top of that he fancies that certain dictators in the world are his friends. His voters were primarily interested in a candidate who would “kick ass and take names”. They wanted someone who could eliminate what they called the “deep state”. Trump has a persistent group of about 1/3 of the conservative voters who support him through thick and thin, but they don’t sound very educated.

Now the hidden brainwaves working in the Trump White House have dreamed up the idea of the “Board of Peace“. Accepted are the countries of UAE, Bahrain, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam have already signed up. Rootin’ tootin’ Putin too.

It is plain to see that the American Constitution is inadequate for this and other circumstances. What if he is removed by the 25th Amendment but refuses to acknowledge it? His executive branch controls the major law enforcement agencies. If they refuse to remove Trump from office, who will do it? Foremost is needed a mechanism for the physical removal of a president from the White House and confiscation of the nuclear codes that follow him. Such authority and mechanism should be defined in the US Constitution. The current US Supreme Court’s conservative majority has adopted a legal theory called “originalism” at least since Justice Scalia’s time.

Originalism is a legal theory in the United States which bases constitutional, judicial, and statutory interpretation of text on the original understanding at the time of its adoption. Wikipedia

This philosophy seeks to limit interpretation of the Constitution to the language and meanings as well as the original intent of the 18th century document. In other words, it is frozen in time. Nobody believes that another amendment to the constitution will be supported by the required number of states. America needs a living document relating to 21st century American life.

Trump has an Edifice Complex. Apologies to Sigmond Freud.

Vice President JD “Gilligan” Vance is next in the line of succession and his inclinations as the next president are unclear. Ok, so we get rid of Trump only to have Gilligan take his place. Will he mindlessly continue the efforts of Trump”? Stay tuned.

Bye Bye Windows 11

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I’ve joined the migration away from Windows 11 specifically and Microsoft (MS) generally. The last few posts on this site were written from a Linux Ubuntu system. Whereas my Windows 11 machine became incompatible with the WordPress editor used to write this blog, my switch to Linux has gotten around this. It is unlikely that the issue was not a Windows 11 problem per se so much as a setting being changed somehow. I was unable to find such a setting.

In short, MS has gotten increasingly greedy not just in cash flow but also in their built-in machinations for automatic scraping of data from users. Its insistence on cloud storage and AI features seems to be based on a business model intent on monetizing every facet of a user’s activity. Superficially, monetization of features the customers value is just normal business strategy. What MS has been doing over time might be called creeping featurism. Product improvement is a competitive act by a manufacturer but also justifies price increases when a revised product is released, if the market allows it.

Alas. Microsoft’s cash cow is dying. Without planned obsolescence, whatever will Microsoft do? Poor miserable buggers.

MS has forced users to deal with Co-Pilot and to upgrade their older computers due to equipment upgrades required by Windows 11. In the past MS users have complied with the requirements of Windows (n+1) for the most part. But the jump to Windows 11 is different.

World wide, there is backlash to MS Windows 11 and data security is no small part of it. South Korea has banned it outright for government use. China, Brazil, the EU, and even Japan are backing off of Windows 11. US corporations are reevaluating going forward with Windows.

My main beef with Windows 11 is that decades of my muscle memory accumulated using Windows OS and MS Office apps has been disrupted. Familiar features, especially in Outlook, continue to trip me up because the menus have been changed to where my keyboard habits refined over many years now work differently.

Windows now requires annual payments for continued use and access to records and documents.

I wish I could reciprocate with a similar inconvenience to MS.

Russia Fires Hypersonic Oreshnik Missiles at Ukraine

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At a time when the Trump administration is making enemies in the EU with talk of a military adventure in Greenland, Putin has unleashed Oreshnik hypersonic intermediate range missiles at Ukrainian civilians. The targeting of civilians is nothing new for the Russians, but the Oreshnik missiles travel at up to Mach 10 (7610 mph) which makes shooting them down problematic. Russia has held back this missile system until now., though in 2024 it apparently had fired a test shot absent explosive warheads. According to Wikipedia the Oreshnik ballistic missile system is still in the experimental stage.

The Russians have gotten quite peevish lately, claiming that Ukraine targeted the sprawling home of Putin. Targeting civilians in Kyiv as well as Lviv in western Ukraine serves the dual purpose of reminding the NATO and the EU of the threat Russia poses to them. Golly. Imagine a warring state trying to decapitate the leader of its opponent. According to reports Russia has been trying to assassinate Zelinski, so a reciprocal decapitation effort should be expected.

While Russia burns through military resources and personnel, and while the Russian economy teeters on the edge of total collapse, the conventional military threat to Europe should weaken more by the day. They are taking roughly 1000 casualties per day while their recruitment effort is falling short of that number. However, the nuclear threat remains. It is an open question as to whether Putin refrains from releasing nuclear weapons as his tenure becomes endangered. The Oreshnik missile is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads- a fact that is lost on nobody.

It’s not in the nature of Putin or his Kremlin to admit even the slightest amount of damage or discomfort caused by Ukraine. One fine day the west will learn that Putin has disappeared and a successor has surfaced. What will Russia do then? A gesture of humanity, perhaps? That would be out of character. A Russian leader could never admit mistakes or defeat. Krushchev did it, but his tenure was cut short by the politburo with Brezhnev taking his place.

The Time is Now!

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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.

Dear World …

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As an American I want to express my dismay and humiliation at the malignant behavior of the maniac that many, but not a majority of, US voters elected as our president … twice. The words idiot or narcissist fail to capture the magnitude of Trump’s deviant personality. I’m at a loss for a strong enough description of this American bad guy.

It’s bad enough that the USA has to put up with him, he is now taking his diseased fantasy show on the road. The attack on Venezuela and apprehension of the Venezuelan president has rattled cages around the world. Worse yet, he said that America will “run Venezuela for a while.” The noises emanating from his cake hole also suggest that Venezuelan crude oil is on his mind as well. After all, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Does he think that American oil company giants will immediately “drill baby drill” and be forever grateful to him?

Does the Trump administration fantasize about placing a democratic republic in place after Maduro? Just like we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Viet Nam?

The US snatch & grab of Maduro from his home in Caracas was technically well-executed but strategically very dangerous and diplomatically naive. One can imagine Chinese military planners moving up the date of their invasion of Taiwan now that international norms have ratcheted down a few clicks.

Pro-Trump media in the US are portraying this Venezuelan expedition as a phenomenal success and cause for patriotic chest thumping. There isn’t anyone stating in public that Maduro is a misunderstood saint. He is was a bad actor and should have been toppled years ago. Few are shedding tears.

The drug running crimes of Venezuela’s cartels include cocaine, but not fentanyl according to knowledgeable people. Worse yet, many are saying that the Venezuelan “drug boat” interdictions conducted by the US Navy were primarily of deliveries to Europe. Not that that is acceptable but victories for the America drug war they are not.

The big problem is the unilateral obliteration of another nation’s sovereignty and disregard for rules-based conduct of the USA. Has the Trump administration thoughtfully considered what unanticipated consequences may hatch out of this offense against international norms and the United Nations?

One of the more intriguing ideas is that the next “expedition” might be Cuba which is closely tied to Venezuela. Venezuela supplies oil to Cuba and they provide health care professionals in return. Being a client state of the Soviet Union in the 1960s, Cuba has been a strategic thorn in the side of the USA since the early Fidel Castro days and a locus of embarrassment in foreign US policy. The US Secretary of State and former Florida senator Marco Rubio is of Cuban descent and is known to harbor ill will towards the Cuban government. But, as always, predicting the future is iffy.

Along with the restructuring of global political power is the momentum to remove the US dollar by the BRICS states from the dollar’s dominance in international finance. American global financial dominance and “political stability” is connected to foreign investment in the dollar which sustains American debt and deficit spending.

There is speculation floating around that Putin wants Russia to be the hegemon of the former Soviet states along with Europe. He believes it to be Russia’s destiny, and he will be the emperor who brings it in. Some reckon that he’ll be fine with the USA dominating the western hemisphere. America and Russia with their own spheres of influence.

The very idea that an American president would collude or at least fly in formation with Putin to divide up the world into an American western hemisphere empire and a Russian/European empire as some are suggesting is beyond my comprehension. Trump’s earlier speculation regarding the annexation of Canada and Greenland into the United States seemed odd in isolation, however in the bigger picture of the USA as hegemon of the Americas puts a bit of context to it.

How US strikes in Nigeria will play out in the near term is a mystery. Given that the reason for the strike was that Nigerian Christians were under attack, where will American Christian Nationalists, whom I will assume were behind the strike, drive this conflict next?

Okay, so this is somewhere between wild-assed speculation and Political Science 202. The game of political rugby is in motion and God help us all.

Crossing the OS Rubicon- From MS Windows 11 Across to Linux Ubuntu

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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.”

Trump’s Navy (TM)

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America’s president has applied for a trademark on “Trump” in Feb. 2025. Everywhere he plasters his name, it will serve as a name marker and a brand name. Selling his name and brand or possibly leasing it has been an important business activity for Trump for quite a while.

According to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), personal names may be trademarked only if-

“Individuals have a right to privacy and a right to control how their name, likeness, and identity is used. If your trademark appears to include the name, signature, or portrait of a particular living individual, your trademark can only be registered with the written consent of that individual. “

There is no doubt that a trademark will be issued since Trump has oversight of the Department of Commerce. So, atop the highest hill in the land, the President’s brand name will stand majestically like old Glory in front of God, the flag and Florida. Any reference to him by name will also serve as brand advertising.

Navy Secretary John Phelan announced that “The future Trump-class battleship – the USS Defiant – will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans…”  So, is the Trump name here his family or brand name? The tell-tale could be a (TM) symbol on the battleship.

Apparently, the recent failure of the Zumwalt Class of destroyers doesn’t dissuade anyone, especially the shipyards. The three Zumwalt-Class ships produced cost $8 billion each. Mike Fredenburg, writing for the National Review said-

The Zumwalt is an unmitigated disaster. Clearly it is not a good fit as a frontline warship. With its guns neutered, its role as a primary anti-submarine-warfare asset in question, its anti-air-warfare capabilities inferior to those of our current workhorse, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its stealth not nearly as advantageous as advertised, the Zumwalt seems to be a ship without a mission.

The readers can see for themselves what Trump said in his public disclosure of the Trump-Class of “battleships”. He made a point of assuring the public that he will be monitoring the aesthetics of the ship’s design.

Given all of the recent developments in anti-ship missiles and the successful use of drone boats by Ukraine, is commissioning larger targets surface ships such a smart idea? Does anyone think China has been sitting in its hands while drone warfare blossoms in the Putin-Ukraine war? They know full well the capabilities of the US Navy and are arming themselves to sink any ship that interferes with their annexing of Taiwan, the Taiwan strait and the South China Seas. America’s technological edge over China must be paper-thin if it exists at all. Do you remember all of those Chinese students and postdocs educating themselves in the USA during the last 40 years? Guess what they have been busy doing since they returned home with their degrees.

China recently revealed a new type of hypersonic antiship missile called the YJ-21 missile at the Zhuhai Air Show 2024. These missiles are designed to attack carrier groups. This high-speed, 2 stage, solid fuel missile is said to exceed Mach 6 with a ballistic trajectory (!!) and velocity that will challenge US antimissile systems. Its warhead system is said to be tailored for attacking large surface ships with a variety of warhead packages.

By “large ships” they mean aircraft carriers specifically and carrier strike groups generally. I assume that “ballistic trajectory” means near-vertical trajectory to the target. Given that the US Navy relies on the overwhelming threat of its carrier groups, this missile system is obviously designed to be maximally effective against the US Navy. Reportedly the missile can be air, littoral or blue water launched.

The upcoming Trump-Class of “battleships” will reflect Trump’s selection of glamorous naval architecture tastefully appointed with abundant gold leaf. If we’re lucky, Melania will design the uniforms with her dark, minimalist couture. Imagine the Mandarin AI guiding the hypersonic Chinese missiles straight down, penetrating the flight decks of our carriers. Will they document in the remaining milliseconds the tastefully appointed ship and note the shame of it all that such elegance is now nothing but burning and drowning sailors, shredded and twisted metal as well as still-functioning nuclear reactors gliding down to the dark and silent abyss below. Will there be unused nuclear warheads resting on the ocean floor? Possibly.

As with the Hollywood and it’s 80 years of WWII war movies, perhaps China’s film industry will portray the WWIII conflict with their own versions of the Hero’s Journey.