China, Our Enemy?

Allow me to make a case that China is an economic competitor of ours, but not an enemy.

Leaders in this country throw around the term enemy far too often, even to the resurrection of the term “enemy of the state,” a phrase I thought dead but turned out to be a zombie.

The Trump administration, possibly only the Orange Shitler, have declared China to be our enemy. (How dare they out compete us, it’s un-American!)

Recently China, in a state of preternatural calm indicated that China doesn’t need to lift a finger to destroy America, indicating that their strategy is “when one’s opponents are busy destroying themselves, don’t interrupt them.” (I don’t know who said that first.)

Instead of competing with China our government is planning on going to war with China, a war that we will not win, probably because China won’t come out to play. Time is on their side. The Leaning Tower of Treason, Captain Grabby Hands, The Fluorescent Führer, our president is wandering as if in a daze around the world firing munitions we are not replacing and soon we will be out of bullets. (Maybe we can ask North Korea to help restock us.) China is busy building a modern navy, and modern armaments, but isn’t engaged in constant military strife that drains its resources. The fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper comes to mind. They are also developing AIs that do not cost an arm and a leg, maybe that is because they don’t worship at the feet of the God Profit.

Instead of going around the world bullying other countries, China is trading development projects for access to “strategic materials.” This is a net positive for China, providing jobs for its population, income for its corporations, and good will in Africa and South America and elsewhere in Asia.

Gosh, do you think their leaders aren’t demented psychopaths? Is that their edge?

First Vance and Now Rubio

Our Vice-president Mr. Vance stated recently that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” even though the U.S. has neither responsibility nor authorization to enforce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty signed by both Iran and the U.S.

Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that U.S. troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes.

So, now we are letting other country’s determine our foreign policy? WTF?

Apparently exerting diplomatic pressure on our “ally” Israel to not do such a foolish thing didn’t sound like enough of a “deal” to the Ayatollah Covfefe.

These clowns need to start wearing honest clown costumes so we can tell that they are not being serious.

The Law of Unintended Consequences Rules AIs, Too

I read recently that a noted software developer fired many hundreds of Junior Software Engineers and replaced them with AIs. Not just AIs, but AIs now to be monitored, supervised by the remaining Senior Software Engineers. So, gosh, what could go wrong? Well, one Senior Software Engineer pointed out as he was heading out the door (He quit, obviously.) with the question: “Where do Senior Software Engineers come from?” Obviously they come from the ranks of Junior Software Engineers, who are tasked with less important tasks, to cut their teeth, so to speak. They need to work, make mistakes, correct them, etc. There is much to learn and without a large pool of Junior Software Engineers, there won’t be any Senior Software Engineers to do their work, so this guy saw the writing on the wall and hightailed it out of town.

The “leaders” in so many tech firms are now business types, no longer the tech types who used to run these places, you know, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison and even Bill Gates (to some extent). The business guys look at the salaries “saved” when the Junior Software Engineers were “made redundant,” “let go,” “terminated,” etc. and think that is a net savings with an increase in productivity thrown in. Except going out the door with them is much institutional knowledge, even a bit of wisdom, and losing that Senior Software Engineer, is an even bigger hit to those categories. They might not even see those “Juniors” as being “Seniors in Training” or as resources of institutional knowledge, etc.

And when it comes to writing software code, AIs shine, but there is another problem come up. You may be aware of what is called “AI slop” sometimes referred to as “AI Hallucinations” or AI Bullshit,” but output from an AI which is severely flawed, let us say. And AIs are being “taught” to train themselves, so fairly soon, they will be raking through the slop from other AIs, even their own, and the problem magnifies. We were alerted to this problem when photocopiers were invented. We learned that if you copied a copy of a copy, etc. the copies soon became unrecognizable. Then when computers came along we were taught the same lesson again, with “lossy” file formats such as JPEG. When JPEG images were saved over and over, they too became “muddy” if not downright unrecognizable.

Now, in an experiment AIs have been fed their own output, then re-fed and re-fed it and, guess what, what you get is bizarre and of no use whatsoever.

So, if we give over training (the expensive part of AI enterprises) to the AIs themselves, what can we expect as results? You know, from AI medical advisers, and that sort? Hello, SkyNet!

VP Vance and the U.S. on Iran

Vice-president J.D. Vance recently told reporters. “What we’re focused on right now is the fact that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Hello? Who put us in charge of who gets and who doesn’t get access to nuclear weapons? There is a treaty, sensibly called the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which Iran signed and ratified in 1968.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NNT) does not contain a specific, self-executing penal code for violations. Instead, its enforcement mechanisms rely on a combination of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards to verify compliance, with enforcement actions ultimately carried out by the UN Security Council. Nowhere does it say that the U.S., with or without its partner in mayhem, Israel, is to enforce this treaty.

Key Details Regarding Iran and the NPT:
• Original Commitment: Iran signed and ratified the NPT, legally committing to nuclear non-proliferation.
• Safeguards Agreement: In 1974, Iran signed a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowing for inspections.
• Compliance Concerns: Despite being a signatory, Iran has been investigated by the IAEA regarding undeclared nuclear materials and has been censured for lack of transparency.
• Threats of Withdrawal: Due to ongoing geopolitical tensions and sanctions, Iranian officials have periodically threatened to withdraw from the NPT. (Source: Al Jazeera)

Iran continues to maintain that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, citing its rights under Article IV of the NPT

Postscript Going to U.S. sources of information on this issue only leads to propaganda, leaving us to seek good information from sources like Al Jazeera. WTF are we doing to ourselves?

Is It Worth Asking …

Is it worth asking Trump or his cronies what the rationale behind his launching an illegal attack on Iran is?

Possibly this is the Trumpinator’s, The Mango Mussolini’s, Donny Demento’s, President Pinocchio’s, The Pedo-in-Chief’s, The Man with No Plan and the Tan in the Can’s, Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA)’s, attempt at being given a spot on the Periodic Table of the Elements because, like all of those other atoms, he makes up everything.

Effing Swear Words

Oxford Languages defines swear words as “a word of a kind used to express anger or other strong emotion and regarded as coarse, blasphemous, or otherwise unacceptable in polite or formal speech.” Coarse speech is stated as being “lacking in refinement; crude or vulgar” (accompanied by the sound of pearls being clutched) … Oh, my! “Blasphemous speech” is “speech against God or sacred things” which we cannot have here in the U.S., a secular country. Of course, religious minorities have their own rules, but they do not apply in general. And “Unacceptable” … to whom is it so?

In other words, swear words are, as George Carlin indicated … “Bad Words.” Mr. Carlin became famous because of a routine he called “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In that diatribe he stated his opinion, that there were no bad words.

In the Anglo-American language traditions, we are still suffering from the Norman conquest of England in 1066. When the Normans took over, the “rulers” spoke French (Normandy being in western France as we know it today) and the conquered peoples spoke English (… and Welsh, and … Gaelic, etc.). To address the court one necessarily spoke in French or hired someone who could because speaking English to the ruling class was just so vulgar. This is, by the way, we have the still stupid legal doublets like “cease and desist,” and “null and void,” and “aid and abet,” “last will and testament,” etc. when the two terms mean the same damned thing. The legal system had to serve to two populations, the rulers and the ruled, so doublespeak became popular.

Swear words are often referred to as “profanity,” which harkens back to “the sacred and the profane” and the definition (Source: Oxford Languages: relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather than religious) tells us that profanity is something to be striven for … in a secular country.

What prompted this post was a comment from a sincere follower of this blog that I had seemed to be using more profanity than I had in the past. S’truth, I have. Profanities like “Fuck Trump, Our War Mongering President” seem to just flow out of me.

Since I do not wish to be discourteous, I will examine whether my use of language is necessary to make my point. If the chosen swear words do not seem to be needed, I will pare them out.

More Legal Doublets (for you fans of such)
Cease and desist: Stop an action and do not resume it.
Null and void: Having no legal force; invalid.
Aid and abet: To assist in committing a crime.
Terms and conditions: Provisions of a contract.
Fit and proper: Suitable for a position.
Give and bequeath: Transfer property via a will.
Force and effect: Valid and binding.
Mind and memory: Mental capacity.
Breaking and entering: Illegal entry into a premises.
Assault and battery: Physical threat and unlawful physical contact.
Will and testament: A document declaring a person’s wishes for their property after death.
Each and every: All individual parts.
Free and clear: Without encumbrances (e.g., in real estate).
Heirs and successors: Those who inherit or take over a position.
Wear and tear: Depreciation from normal use.
Order and direct: A directive from a court or authority.
Indemnify and hold harmless: To secure against loss.

Postscript Most of Carlin’s seven words are of Anglo-Saxon origin, which tells us something about prejudice.

The Effing Elites … Again … Still

I have been watching a number of documentaries of late about ancient Egyptian societies, which have fascinated me since I was a boy. Egyptian kings were considered gods, at least having one foot in godhood status. I don’t know if they invented the “god-king” concept but they were, at least, an early adopter.

One has to ask, why did the vast majority of the population give so much power to these people? Clearly the power was usurped by two means: force and religion. So-called kings who were just battle leaders kind of liked being able to order people around and so extended their hegemony into peace time, their loyal soldiers becoming “palace guards.” In many other cases, shamans or other “holy men” saw protection and a meal ticket by running interference for the powerful secular leaders and so made a marriage made in heaven, literally. The Secular-Religious Axis was a joint powers agreement.

Apologists will respond with points like “religion supplies order and is a salve for the vicissitudes of daily life. Religion a salve? Not hardly. Take the word of Tony Castaldo who started reading the Bible as a pre-teen: “And by the time I finished “Numbers”, I did understand God — I understood that God was a superhero story, like Superman or Spiderman, just one invented by brutal men that used violence and murder to subjugate women (so they could rape them at will with no repercussions) and children and slaves.”

Watching myriad Egyptian citizens (not slaves) muscling millions of stone blocks into the shape of a pyramid (two and a half million blocks in just the Great Pyramid, weighing approximately six million tons) over decades requires me to ask about the opportunity costs. What would those tens of thousands of healthy workers been able to do had they not been “assigned” stone carrying duties? Economists explain that whenever you tackle any task, you incur and “opportunity cost” in the form of giving up on what you could do on another task. And archaeologists have identified over 118 to 138 distinct pyramids in Egypt.

And who ordered these to be built? The Egyptian Kings, of course. And, then there are the grandiose temples (e.g. Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Edfu, Dendera, Hatshepsut, and Ramesseum and thousands of “lesser” temples) to be built for the priests, gotta keep them happy, too. (Google AI says, “These sites primarily served as homes for deities, built by pharaohs to showcase their devotion and power.” Exactly, vanity projects and political sops traded for priestly support.)

It is the Effing Elites who order such grotesque vanity projects, who decide to make war on neighbors, etc. What if instead, all of that labor and wealth were applied to controlling the flooding of the Nile? Or building affordable housing and providing affordable food and drink for ordinary Egyptians)? (I can hear the GOP caterwaulers screaming “Socialism!” already.)

If you then follow the history of the human race for the next 2000 years, you will see the same pattern, e.g. autocrats like Louis the Fourteenth, Mussolini, Hitler, and Trump with their grandiose building projects and wars at the drop of a hat.

So, why do we yield our power to these assholes? Especially when the U.S. was formed as the first nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people” and kings could go eff themselves.

Everything is an Emergency with a Drama Queen

In his first eighteen months back in office, Trump has declared at least eight national emergencies. Not because the nation was actually on fire. Because aging drama queens love emergencies. (Carolyn Beccia on Medium.com February 24, 2026)

The whole post is Members Only and is worth reading.

I Wonder If Trump Sought Approval from his Board of Peace Before Attacking Iran

President Trump, you know, the anti-war President, has decided making war is not so bad.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein.

The only major board Trump, aka The Fraudfather Don Snoreleone, aka Donnie DoLittle, aka Dog-Whistle Don is qualified for at this point in his “career” is the Board of Human Stupidity.

Why Christians Stick to their Guns

Hint: For the same reasons Trump supporters stand by their man. It has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with belonging. I was reading a post by Dan Foster, a recovering minister, who stated this:

For most pastors, faith is not just belief. It is their employment, and sometimes even their housing. It shapes their community, their friendships, and their sense of identity. It often determines how they provide for their families and how they explain their life story to themselves and others. (Dan Foster)

This was stated after making reports on polls showing that a great many preachers/pastors experience doubts about their own faith. Some lose their faith completely but stay on the job because what else are they qualified to do?

Belonging is a heady mixture of acceptance, recognition, feelings of love and understanding, and more. When the religious or Trump supporters are presented with uncomfortable facts, they tend to dig in their heels and resist in a sort of “My Country Right or Wrong” kind of way (Republicans invented that one, too, no?). These are challenges to their identity as a member of their particular group.

These are not the only people who feel this way, I suggest that all people feel this way. We all identify to some extent as members of a group: Real Americans™, Real Christians™, real Boston Celtic fans, or members of the Republican Party, or Democratic Party, or the good’uns (good people, moral people, nice people, etc.). Rarely do we admit character flaws, such as being racists, or being prejudiced in any way. We need to maintain our membership in whatever groups we see ourselves in.

Over and over we are told that Trump supporters, or the religious, will not be changed by arguments based upon facts and logic. This is why.

I claim that feeling doubts is a good thing. At one point in my life I realized that my values had been programmed into me by my parents and that I had never really examined those or taken possession of them, they were just part of my programming. So, over a period of a year, year and a half, I examined as many of these values as I could identify and either confirmed them as something I wanted to be a part of me, or endeavored to change them.

I suspect that religious doubts are especially pernicious, especially in faith-based religions. Since faith is belief without or even in spite of evidence to the contrary, it is particularly hard to examine. Part of that examination includes, I think, asking “How do I know this?” and “How did I come to this understanding?” or “Who told me?” and so on. And most Christian religions discourage such questioning, especially in the young. Once they are “confirmed” as being indoctrinated, an occasional question is allowed, but ask too many in any of those churches and you will find yourself out on the street.