Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s been less than a month since my last commentary on DJT, the stock symbol for the company Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., and, if you hold this stock in your portfolio, it doesn’t look good. In those last three weeks, roughly, it’s been an 18% slide in value.

Source: finance.yahoo.com.

This one month chart illustrates the problem for those who appreciate graphs, showing that going back a week or so from previous commentary makes the problem even worse – down 23%.

This suggests investors’ confidence in an offering of a social media platform featuring a President who, in my opinion, has earned the moniker The Mendacity Machine, a cryptocurrency treasury, supporting access to prediction markets, aka betting pools on just about anything you like, the offering of $TRUMP, and a few other things is eroding. It may have to do with the occupants of the C-suites, or doubts about crypto’s long term viability, or the President’s long-term drawing power as the star of a social media platform reportedly struggling. Talk to your favorite investors and you may get as many opinions as you have such friends.

This is in the context of a market that is setting new records, although I will also state that I think we’re seeing the type of frothy market characteristic of a situation in which there are many unfamiliar factors. The government is painfully, even dangerously, incompetent, run by oddballs who’ve clung to opinions far outside that of the mainstream for decades, and by God, now that they’re in power, they’re going to afflict us with those opinions; they’ll frantically deny they have anything to do with the negative consequences that occur.

Just like their role model, Mr Trump. Think of the troubling labor statistics that accompanied his occupancy of the Oval Office, statistics which the President cut off by firing – perhaps illegally – the lead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Notably, his nomination to replace said leader was withdrawn as the Senate signaled it would not approve him amidst general criticism of and laughter at him, him being E. J. Antoni. I’ve not heard of a new nominee, as Mr Trump practices the old art of obscuring the unpleasant while his spokesperson trumpets his transparency, over and over again.

That must make formerly confident investors nervous enough to withdraw investments from Trump. I differentiate investors, people who separate emotion from investing, from MAGA investors, investors from President Trump’s electoral base, who follow emotion in their investing and have bought DJT. I think the MAGA investors are in for an unpleasant surprise.

I see the market as the Pied Piper these days, attracting money that may never return. But I’m no expert, I’m just an investor who’s feeling suspicious about markets in a nation featuring an absolutely untrustworthy President who may be guided by a morality system based on wishful thinking.

Noted on the way home the other day.

Steve Benen is disturbed by this Politico report, behind a paywall^[1], concerning President Trump treating a meeting with the troops as a campaign rally:

Speaking to U.S. soldiers aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, Japan, the Republican did it once again. The New York Times noted, “Trump has been doing this more often at home lately, but it is still striking to see him basically holding what looks and sounds very much like one of his signature political rallies in front of members of the United States military.”

A Politico report fleshed this out in more detail:

In the early hours of this morning, Trump gave another highly partisan speech to the U.S. military, hailing his own political achievements and repeatedly condemning his Democratic opponents and critics in the media. … [W]hat’s most striking is Trump’s willingness to use the troops as a foil for his highly partisan rhetoric. He repeatedly condemned his predecessor Joe Biden, told his audience the 2020 election had been rigged and savaged Democratic governors who resist military incursions into their cities. … Trump also called out the ‘fake news media,’ encouraging the troops to deride the gathered journalists.

It’s worth taking a moment to explore the landscape.

… we must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. [Benjamin Franklin or Carl Van Doren, Founders Online]

This is more than a meme from the Founding of the United States, it’s an accurate description of the situation: either the British colonies of North America that were in rebellion united, or it was likely that each person would be hung.

But let’s make this a bit more complex. Why is it often old men and women who lead nations? It’s worth a thought on that, especially if my reader is younger and, perhaps, not particularly contemplative.

The answer is not surprising. Experience of all sorts informs judgment, as does having the time for meditation, and even having proper mental models of how humans work.

When I see a group of young people cheering on some old fellow who’s spouting populist ideas of little merit, I’m reminded why we don’t put those young adults in charge. Further, their lack of judgment, a natural condition for folks of their age, make them vulnerable to poor advice and illicit directives.

In a dangerous world, we should be coming together, compromising and looking to the common weal. Instead, President Trump, unlike most leaders, is leading the way into division, risking wrack and ruin, demonizing anyone he sees as a danger to his corrupt and grifting ways. This is a betrayal of the young adults of America.

They should be paying attention to criticisms and not cheering his simplistic and incorrect analyses. They’re getting an up-close look at power-grubbing, and it should sicken them.

¹ I approve of paywalls, actually, as I view the ad model of paying for websites to be corrosive as it removes some, or even all, of the social contract influence that a paid subscription implies. Do I have a sub for Politico? No. Being a working dude, I have not the time for reading it properly, nor the interest.

If you’re finding the price of ingredients for pie to be prohibitive, Max Miller of Tasting History is here to tell you all about water pie.

After some upgrade drama…

Not totally resolved …

We have flowers!

All from last summer.

Ectoparasite:

Ectoparasites are defined as parasites that infest the outer surface of their hosts, which can include species that live exclusively on humans, such as lice and scabies, as well as those that are incidental hosts, like fleas. They can cause intense itching and may transmit diseases through their bites. [ScienceDirect]

Noted in this Animalogic video concerning vampire sharks. I shan’t help you find it.

I don’t know about my reader, but I’d be alarmed if I were President and read this:

A majority of Americans agree “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy” (56%), up from 52% in March 2025, compared with 41% who agree “President Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.” [Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)]

Especially in combination with his disastrous address to the top military brass of a few weeks ago, which gave the impression that he had no idea how to deal with them – and they were absorbing the fact that he’s an appearance-obsessed businessman completely lacking in a deep understanding of anything except how to get elected in today’s age.

I wonder about this, which came in mail from AL-Monitor with no link:

On Oct. 27, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned AI company Humain announced Humain One — a new AI-based operating system that lets users talk to their computers rather than click icons. The company, launched in May under its powerful Public Investment Fund and chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, sees systems like its voice-driven OS eventually replacing traditional systems like Windows or macOS.

The new system’s debut, announced by CEO Tareq Amin at the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh, offers another revealing glimpse of Humain’s ambitions. In August, the company introduced Humain Chat, an Arabic-language chatbot built on its own large language model, ALLAM 34B. Now, with Humain One, it’s potentially signaling a bigger vision: embedding generative AI at the heart of everyday computing.

Generative AI in the central heart of my computer? Probabilistic guesswork rather than determinism in everything a computer does?

It may be time to begin life-long abstention from computers. Back to drinking heavily.

I wonder if Erick Erickson thinks he’s got enough credit to get away with this, or if he really believes his own baloney:

Frankly, I think all the gold leaf at the White House makes it look less American and more like a French whore house.

Or will he just get dragged off one night by Trump’s Chumps? Given President Trump’s exceptional vanity, I shouldn’t be surprised if that were to happen. I hope he has the credit to survive the misstep – or was given a prior go-ahead to prove his independence.

Watching Ryan Hall’s coverage of Hurricane Melissa’s imminent Jamaican landfall with winds at around 285 MPH, he said hurricane eyes, the center of a hurricane, are just big, big tornadoes.

Funny how I’d never thought of it that way before.

You can find Mr Hall on YouTube and other platforms. At present he seems to be involved in live coverage.

For this engineer, some fashion shows are good, if a bit dull; some are awful; and some are … this.

We actually enjoyed it.

Erick Erickson, last week, that is.

Boomer Selma and the GOP’s Secret Weapon

Yep, right with the title he’s mocking an important civil rights incident. I don’t know the character of this Secret Weapon, but immediately it crosses my mind to wonder why he’s going to reveal it.

Ok, so Democrats are boneheaded, I’ll grant him that. But onwards!

No Kings has come and gone and was, thankfully, a peaceful protest of mostly white retirees.

The Boomers are ever in need of their Selma.

What struck me most is that while there was diversity of sex and race and ethnicity, the crowds were everywhere still mostly older white people. These people’s fathers stormed the beaches of Normandy and fought the actual Nazis, then came home and started families, then joined together in the Civl Rights movement while their kids were partying in high school.

It’s dumb crap like that, assuming that kids were partying. Some kids don’t. Come to think of it, I was in the throes of teenage depression and didn’t party. But it’s bombastic because he plays to stereotypes, the worst stereotypes, rather than address the situation of interest, and that’s how divisiveness is promoted. He’s not trying to persuade independents, or the other side; he’s trying to install an abyss of contempt on his side.

It may not seem so bad so far.

Now the kids need their moment to be like dad. They had a summer of love. They want a summer of mattering.

They have no bridges to cross in Selma. So they show up with silly signs and dumb chants for pretty much anything. Now, it is to protest that the democratically elected President of the United States and the democratically elected Republican controlled Congress that empowers him are allowing that elected President to behave like a king, and the only thing to stop him are, ironically, life-tenured unelected judges who are kings in their courtrooms and boomers marching in the street with their grandkids.

Does he address the concerns of those who attended No-Kings protests? No, he mocks them and, in so doing, actually belittles himself. Who has power of tariffs? Who has the power of the purse, the authority to allocate funds? Who has the authority to create and fund departments?

Congress, not President Trump, yet the latter has claimed those powers and more.

Who puts on an unprecedented military parade on his own birthday? Whose Administration stands accused, credibly, of lying to the judiciary?

The 60 Minutes story noted that the nonpartisan law journal Just Security has discovered more than 35 cases in which judges have said the government is lying to them. One judge warned that “trust that had been earned over generations has been lost in weeks.” [“October 20, 2025,” Heather Cox Richardson]

All characteristics of a group of people frantic to hold onto power, isn’t it? To wear crowns and parade about as if they’re the chosen of God.

Speaking of the judiciary, notice how far Erickson will stretch to make an emotionally resonant, yet factually inaccurate point: … stop him are, ironically, life-tenured unelected judges who are kings in their courtrooms. Erickson should know so much better, being a lawyer himself. Judges are constrained in many ways: follow judicial procedures, the law, stare decisis, or get decisions, jury and bench, reversed by higher courts.

He appeals to emotion, not to rationality. Emotional appeals when it comes to national polarization and concerns about a deeply unpopular President and his clown-car of a Cabinet, are dangerous and irresponsible.

His excuse? The other side is a pack of socialists. That they favor socially responsible behaviors over which we’ve been debating for decades, such as sustainable energy. That the supporting mechanisms and fallout of transgenderism will be forced upon them without their input, a rare valid point which can make it hard to support Democrats. We need Party reform or replacement on both sides.

But the rest of the whining is, well, just that. And then he segues off to the Drudge Report, which appears to be continuing Matt Drudge’s independent ways…and that’s intolerable, I guess.

I stopped reading. It was an angry mass of writing of a guy caught between Scylla and Charybdis: on the one hand, the Democrats are ‘baby-killers,’ while on the other hand the Republicans are a pack of mendacious idiots whose lust for power overrides respect for democracy or any sort of honor. He’s in the soup, members of the jury. Here’s your tasting spoon.

I’ll leave it at that. He’s acting the part of the shirtless propagandist, so wound up that he discards his shirt before it becomes soaked in the sweat of misleading statements

First, apply the old Mencken maxim:

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

In this case, it’s the central problem of representative democracy: how to pick the representatives? Today, I believe all states whose population gives them more than one seat in the House of Representatives select those on a geographic basis, meaning each Representative is associated with a geographic segment of the State.

It’s the manipulation of those boundaries for electoral dominance that is called gerrymandering.

But what constitutes a fair district? It’s not a simple question. If more of Party A than Party B are registered in a State, should every district reflect that difference? Or should historical results be confined, roughly, to a given district?

Or should districts be drawn to reflect non-electoral realities on the ground? All coal-miners get their own district, perhaps?

When it’s non-obvious, proposals like this tend to sprout from the brows of political watchers and hopefuls, such as Matthew Algeo:

Lamasery:

a monastery of lamas. [Wordsmyth]

And a lama appears to be a Tibetan monk. Noted in “The century-old quest to find this large, mythical animal,” Nathalia Holt, WaPo:

The next morning, [the Roosevelt brothers] mustered the energy to hike the snowy mountain listlessly. Hearing the beating of drums, they followed the noise to a stone edifice strung with Tibetan prayer flags. They had stumbled upon a remote lamasery, and the expedition was saved by the benevolence of monks who took in the travelers. The men and women, dressed in golden robes, offered the brothers food, clean bedding and supplies, even helping patch up the burned holes in Kermit’s coat with squares of bright yellow from their own clothing. Renewed by their few days in the lamasery, the explorers returned to the trail.

From Religion News Service’s (RNS) Jack Jenkins, more than a month ago:

Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

Sounds like the Romans – the Trump Administration and all of its supporters – and the Christians, those who want to do right but understand there are varying viewpoints.

Oh, and the Romans had a long history of being cruel, and, at least in myth, enjoying it.

This knowledge helps shape responses and persuading the undecided to join the anti-Trumpers. No matter how loud the Trumpers, like Erick Erickson, keep trumpeting their support.

Adam Aleksic talks about how feedback loops involving ChatGPT and other generative Large Language Models (LLMs) AI tools are affecting language use.

Linguistically, there’s nothing wrong with [the emphasis of certain words over their synonyms]. The word “delve” isn’t any worse for your brain than its synonyms. But language is a harbinger of greater social shifts. There are many other, far more insidious misrepresentations that are also coded into LLMs. Racial biases, gender biases and political biases — all of these are probably trained into the models much like linguistic biases, but these are harder to definitively measure. We need to remember that these aren’t neutral tools: They hold the power to subtly reshape our thinking. [WaPo]

And – they are at least one step removed from reality, and probably more accurately several. We’re not talking about creatures who experience reality directly by their senses. No, all they get is text input.

A great reason to be wary of such programs. Don’t take their outputs without checking them, and please don’t fall in love with them.

“Why did you drag us down here?”

Under the second Trump administration, however, Greene has increasingly emerged as a rogue voice of dissent within the Republican ranks.

Over the past several months, the congresswoman has blasted the GOP for effectively bailing out the Argentine economy, striking against Iranian nuclear facilities, providing ongoing aid to Israel and, amid the ongoing government shutdown, refusing to take action regarding the expiration of Obamacare subsidies at the end of this year, which may see insurance premiums more than double for some families come January.

Greene has also fervently lobbied for greater transparency in the White House’s handling of recent developments in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case. With her Republican colleague in the House, Thomas Massie, and their counterpart across the aisle, Democratic Congressman Ro Kanna, she has helped helm a growing push to have the Justice Department release new documents on the late pedophile’s crimes. [Daily Beast]

We’re down in Wonderland!

Look, I’m no fan of Rep Greene (R-GA), even if she did give me one of my favorite conspiracy theories of all time, but these days she’s starting to come across as the most sane of her caucus – and actually making sense when it comes to criticizing the ways of the GOP.

And that’s gotta be a bit scary for everyone in D.C.

Especially if she goes independent. The failure to release the Epstein Files may actually cause the unimaginable.

If you’re feeling the need for gravitas and dignity in your life, especially in view of the fumbling clowns in the federal government, then this should help.

For those goat entrails enthusiasts, there was apparently a small surprise up in red Alaska a couple of weeks ago:

Election Day 2025 is over in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and City of Fairbanks Mayor David Pruhs conceded the race for his position to challenger Mindy O’Neall on Tuesday night.

Preliminary results have come in from all 32 of the precincts across the area, showing O’Neall with a current 280-vote lead over Pruhs.

Calling the race “over,” Pruhs said, “I ran a good race. So did Mindy. She had a lot of state Democratic Party backing. We had a low voter turnout, so it’s a perfect storm for her to take the seat.” [Alaska’s News Source]

It’s not clear that Fairbanks’ mayors emphasize their party allegiances, but, in red Alaska, taking the city of Fairbanks should boost local Democrats.

Circumnuclear disc:

The circumnuclear disc (CND) orbiting the Galaxy’s central black hole is a reservoir of material that can ultimately provide energy through accretion, or form stars in the presence of the black hole, as evidenced by the stellar cluster that is presently located at the CND’s centre.

Noted in “We finally found the hot wind coming out of our black hole,” Alex Wilkins, NewScientist (4 October 2025, paywall):

These winds, however, have never been conclusively detected in Sgr A* [the black hole at the center of the Milky Way], despite being predicted since the 1970s. This is partly because it is so difficult to observe the region around our galaxy’s black hole, a tightly packed melange of stars, dust and gas called the circumnuclear disc (CND).

Because, in order to hold the mob organization together, the boss must show some minimal amount of loyalty to the minions, and do so publicly:

Disgraced former Rep. George Santos, who had been serving a seven-year term for the fraud charges that got him ousted from Congress, was released from prison on Friday night after President Donald Trump commuted his sentence, his lawyer tells CNN.

Trump first announced the commutation on Truth Social on Friday evening, and, according to attorney Joseph Murray, Santos’ family picked him up from the prison about five hours later.

“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life,” Trump added. [CNN/Politics]

Notice the weakness of the President’s reasoning.

But I doubt Santos could be re-elected to his former seat; perhaps he could be elected to some other district’s seat, but I dunno. He’d have to run around screaming he was mistreated until he was hoarse, and, looking at his record, he’s little more than a pretty face.

Hello, Dan Quayle!

de trop:

too much or too many : SUPERFLUOUS, EXCESSIVE [Merriam-Webster]

From the French. Noted in Andrew Sullivan’s answer to some mail on The Weekly Dish here:

Point taken. I have tried to make distinctions between actual transexuals and the gender woo-woo crowd, but obviously not enough. I’m grateful for the upbraid. And that policy is dumb. I have long opposed restroom bans as de trop, and only consider full-nudity locker rooms to be problem [sic]. But the distinction between post-op transexuals and the dude who just decided he feels like a woman today is huge and important. I guess what I’m saying here is: I’m with you. And I think the genderqueers have hurt legit transexuals by their postmodern hooey.

Cryptocurrency is in the news a lot; my lack of commentary is reflective of laziness, not dearth of events. The latest combines, inevitably I think, with politics. Reuters reports from the Middle East:

NEW YORK, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Following the largest crypto liquidation in history last Friday, options market investors are bracing for more volatility and further declines in bitcoin and ether, aggressively positioning in trades that offer protection against another potential freefall.

Market participants said the crypto sector on Friday saw more than $19 billion in liquidations across leveraged positions as panic selling and low liquidity triggered sharp swings. The plunge came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced late on Friday a 100% tariff on Chinese imports and threatened export controls on critical software.

Crypto analysts said this was the largest wipeout in a 24-hour period in the market’s history, nine times larger than the February 2025 crash and 19 times bigger than the March 2020 meltdown and the FTX collapse in November 2022. [Reuters]

My goodness. Long-time readers may recall this anonymous observation made upon the launch of $TRUMP by the now-President:

CNN noted that the release of the meme coin had raised “serious ethics concerns,” but those who participate in the industry were less gentle. One wrote: “Trump’s sh*tcoin release has caused possibly the greatest overnight loss of credibility in presidential history. He made $60B. Great for Trump family, terrible for this country and hopes we had for the Trump presidency.”

Fulfillment of the ominous prediction? Well, we’ll see. It may turn out to be a blow to DJT’s “treasury” of cryptocurrency; a bit of a knee delivered to the President’s reproductive equipment. With his own knee.

Or, if he’s just into chaos, then it’s not so bad for him.

Or does he consider other mega-billionaires to be ‘competition’ for a place next to God in his prosperity church? And that was a blow against them? Sounds like madness?

Welcome to the club.