From Behind Enemy Lines

Since January 2026, there have been 11 deaths by ICE shooting. I’m sure you can name a couple of them, but can you name all of them? Probably not. I follow this stuff, and I had to go look them up, even the ones I knew fairly well (Pretti and Good). On a side note, I look at those numbers and consider it pretty good. That isn’t even 2 hours on a Friday night in Chicago. But I digress.

The reason we’ve all forgotten about those folks is a) they’re in the past and the news has (largely) moved on to other, more fiscally positive things, and b) they’re dead. There’s no one to bitch about how put out they are. And therein lies the crux.

I will state, first and foremost, that I do not like war, I do not support war, and I do not want war. However, I am also a pragmatist. War happens, and we must be prepared to deal with it if it arrives. People who are completely peaceful and who refuse to defend themselves have a name: victims. I do not wish our country to be victims. Therefore, whatever my personal *feelings* are, war is something that will have to happen occasionally.

In the past, small countries would get themselves attacked by America, because then America came in, set up a government, fed them money, and got them on their feet again. That’s been our rules of operation for a very long time. It’s served us almost as well as it has served those countries, in my opinion. We’ve helped much of the globe achieve capitalism and democracy of some sort, and the level of violence around the world is extremely low right now. That’s largely to do with us.

Iran is not one of those small countries, though. It is poking the bear, repeatedly. They* believe, firmly believe, that Allah will bring them glory if they fight the United States. They believe, absolutely, that if they poke the bear and have an actual war instead of the current pissing contest that’s going on, they will win. Of course, if they don’t win, they all go to Allah and get their virgins or whatever, so they can’t lose either way.

It is time for us to send them to Allah, boys and girls.

I don’t want us to drop nukes. That would open too many doors to too many devils. But we easily have in our hands the means of busting their bunkers and sending the lot of them to their god. And I believe, just as firmly as they believe in Allah, that it’s time to do some busting.

The longer we carry this current “war” on, the less the American people are going to support it. I posit that, had Trump gotten permission early on and just bombed them into the Stone Age, by today everyone would be reacting to it the same way we’re reacting to stuff about Good and Pretti. We’d have mostly forgotten it, because it wouldn’t be getting anymore news cycles. Dead civilizations don’t complain. They are silent. And they’re not fun to write news about, past the initial few weeks.

Trump has flame retardant boxers. He has the means and the reason to do this. It needs to be done, not just for America, but for France and Britain and Germany and all the other countries of the world who are being overrun by these people. We’ve entered the time of the paradox of tolerance, and it’s time to just STOP. Once we bomb them, they can have their newly sanitized country back. We can put a few decent rulers in to start, and warn them that if they start up that shit again, we’ll put a wall around them and leave them to starve, but they’re never doing this diaspora crap EVER again.

Trump no longer has reason to be nice to anyone. Before he loses the last of his “unlimited” (hah) power having all 3 branches of the government, can we PLEASE get this done?

*They, defined as those folks who consider themselves old-style Muslims, intent on killing everyone who isn’t already a Muslim and isn’t willing to convert. I don’t care about those who have become Americans (and I don’t mean “become” as in getting their paperwork… I mean as in assimilated to our culture). Americans are who we’re protecting. I mean those who want the death of Americans and capitalists as a whole. And I realize y’all don’t care about that definition, but I do, so it was important to me to put it in here.

Historically, the Left and the Right have done a dance every four to six years. Things switch around, little gets done, and the government is hobbled by one thing or another. For the past two years, that has not been the case. The Right has had the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, all wrapped up in a pretty bow. We know this, because things have gotten done. We’ve weeded out some (but not all) corruption and fraud. We’ve slowed illegal immigration. We’ve deported many violent criminals. We’ve ended a bunch of stupid things, like regulating plastic straws and funding foreigners studying birds in other countries. We’ve started the process of returning men and women to their biological places (and, as far as I can tell, largely without causing any major harms to folks who really are transgendered and just want to be left alone).  We’ve worked on lowering taxes in some places (but raised them in others). Most importantly, the tariffs have forced American companies to start producing things that we had outsourced to other countries, thereby strengthening our economy.

Despite all this, the Right was *crushed* in this midterm election. I’m curious to find out why this happened. The options, as I see them:

• Republicans didn’t get out and vote, something they’re VERY bad at during midterms
• The current vote shows the public decision in regards to what’s been done with the government (valid, even if I dislike it)
• The split caused by the GOP made for hugely bad optics and left many middle ground voters confused and unsure.

My best guess is the last one, though it could be mixed with the first. I don’t think so, however. It’s also possible for all three of the above to be true at the same time.

The war with Iran has been massively unpopular, even among Republicans and general conservatives. While I agree that Iran should not have nuclear missiles, and I also agree that Islam is causing huge problems that need to be dealt with in our country, we should not have stayed in this war. We should have gone in, struck, and got the fuck out. The six weeks Trump promised us have slid into eight months at this point, with no real end in sight. This was NOT what Republicans voted for; it’s the exact opposite.

Inflation has been hard. There are a lot of items that are still very expensive, and coming into the holidays that’s a hard sell. I know the President doesn’t have any magic way to deal with that, but there are certainly ways Trump could have eased the pain (and without handing out cash… that “offer of $5000 if we sweep the midterms” was crass in my very strong opinion). I have no real issue with the current prices, even though I wish they were lower. But I know how to make “freezer scraping soup” when necessary. Most folks today have no clue. No one knows how to make beans and rice 18 different ways anymore. Soup has gone out of style, unless it’s bougie expensive stuff. If the government had worked on something akin to the Victory Garden idea, offering ideas and help to the people in planting gardens or how to cook cheap meals, I think that would have gone a long way. While Kennedy did some of that, his methods of trying to “reach the people” were pretty off the mark, again in my opinion. He’s been rich long enough that he’s never truly had to scrape, and it reflects in what he cooks. Not enough rice and beans, folks. When my most popular videos on my author TikTok are about cooking cheap meals, the government is not doing enough to educate people.

The tariffs have been a huge loss for many people. I have the ability to look far enough in the future to see how it benefits us, but our government did next to nothing to explain to “the plain folks” how this stuff works. I know, because I was watching for it, and it never arrived. I’m certain part of that is because the people doing it are, frankly, quite old… they know how tariffs work because they’ve seen them used in the past… and “everyone knows” about how they work, right? Wrong. Starting off with a lot of education on how We the People get shafted by every other country on the planet would have been great. Adding tariffs in AFTER that would have caused (hopefully, at least) a wave of patriotism. You have to build the brand first, THEN launch. You can’t launch then scramble to get caught up.

Trump didn’t push the SAVE Act through. That should have been the number 2 priority after getting out of that damn war.

And while I do think there are bunches of very valid reasons for building a ballroom, Trump and team did NOT read the room before doing it. Building something perceived as vainglorious (regardless of who’s paying for it) is never going to go down well when people are suffering in the grocery store and at the gas pumps. The idea was good, but the application was horrendous.

Over on TikTok, someone asked if “real Republicans” would answer a question: When you voted for Trump, did you vote for him to dismantle the Department of Education? I explained that I’m small “c” conservative, not Republican but certainly Republican aligned (especially right now), and definitely not Left… and yes, that is indeed what Republicans voted for, en masse, and happily. And then I explained that, Left or Right aside, the government has (and always will have) the Reverse Midas Touch. Everything the government touches turns to shit. So I want my government to touch as little as possible. When asked what that meant, I said we should have a government that fits inside the Constitution… and we currently do not, and that’s wrong. Even other Right Wingers have been debating me, pointing out things they think are good that are done by Big Gov. My answer is always going to be the same: if the Right can do something with the government, then the Left can also do something. Since the Right and Left are diametrically opposed (moreso now than at ANY other time in history), that means we should not be allowing the government to do much of anything.

Trump had the right idea with DOGE, but he let other people find ways to derail it before it could remove the worst of the bloat from DC. The big ticket that both sides have seemed to want is the idea of term limits for Senate and House… and that hasn’t even been mentioned among the up and coming elected folks.

I’m disappointed today. I wanted to see at least equilibrium. Seeing the blue wave is disheartening. Any further forward movement by Trump will have to be done by EO, and those are easily turned over with a swipe of the magic pen by the next person in office.

With House and Senate in Democrat control, I foresee Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. That leaves Vance, who is a great candidate. But I don’t know if he’s ready. It’s one thing to be VP… it’s quite another to be the President. Don’t get me wrong… I do want him as President. I just don’t know if right now is the correct moment for it to happen. I hope he’s ready. I think he has the ability to find a middle ground that will be less hated by the Left, and only a little hated by the GOP. He’s fairly good at dancing around that line. And he has good ideas, a strong family life, and his family is “diverse” as the Left likes to call it. While it has absolutely nothing to do with how well he does his job, and we know that, the Left DOES care and so we may as well compound on that.

Hegseth, also, is probably on the chopping block. I hate that. I think he’s done more for the US Military in his short time in office than anyone else since the World Wars. I’ve seen so many men and women in uniform truly excited and happy to be there, after years of feeling trodden on.

It’s an emotionally rough day today. Don’t let yourself get dragged into bad conversations. Give yourself space. And don’t get angry… get educated. I mean it! The Right lost… big time. Don’t spend one fucking second whining about it. Go find out why. Figure it out, and then fix it. That is LITERALLY the only way out of this mess.

So if you’ve been on social media at all in the past week, you’ll have seen the warnings going out to many countries. (Newsweek, WION)

Why is it suddenly now that governments are warning their citizens to prepare? Well, the short answer is, it isn’t “just now.” Most of Europe has been telling their people that for just over two years now. It just hasn’t made the news here. And of course OUR news is now saying this is something new, something terrifying. Because, you know, storing enough food, water, and heat for 72 hours is absolutely scary.

I could say all this is because of Iran and other places (mostly in the Middle East, but let’s not forget China and Russia) are gearing up for bigger war. This is no longer a matter of a few people lobbing minor bombs at Israel. Things are mobilizing, and the last six months have been much more active. While I feel like Trump has probably brought much of this to a head, I don’t see it as “his fault” at all. Instead, I expect that he’ll squeeze it like a zit and relieve the pressure. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping for.

I don’t want us to be at war. On the other hand, I don’t want the Middle East having nuclear capabilities, either, because they seem quite willing to use everything they get their hands on.

So officially, we here in the States have also been warned to have 72 hour kits at the ready. Our family is prepared; is yours?

I ask this not because I’m being facetious or rude, but because I have always thought it wise. Right now, too many people are playing stupid games, and I’m waiting for us to start seeing people winning stupid prizes. Having 3 days (or more) of necessities on hand is not just what we’re being asked to do… it’s the smart thing to do.

What kind of things should you have on hand? Well, think about that whole Rule of Threes thing Chris and I harp on about. First aid kit for sure. Shelter (which is not just your house or vehicle, but also how you heat that shelter…. do you have firewood or gas to run an indoor-safe heating unit if electricity goes out? do you have blankets, both to block off the room you’re in so you’re only heating one space, and to huddle under because the weather is getting hella colder right now?). Water, because if the electric goes out, you may not be able to use your taps. Now’s a good time to crack open the taps and fill up a bunch of water containers, and just keep them on hand. Just in case. You might want to get water purification tablets if you’re concerned about a longer power outage and lack of water.

Food is essential, but that also includes how you’re going to cook it. While you can absolutely open any can or tetra pouch and just eat what’s inside, cold, it isn’t yummy. You can make some really yummy meals that are quick and easy from canned goods, stuff that will keep you full and healthy. If you’re in a home and not a vehicle, you can always use a Buddy Burner backpacking stove. These can be used outdoors, but they can also be used in a house if you crack a window (while they do make carbon dioxide, there isn’t much more than you’d find in a candle or three, so a cracked window is probably overkill but smart). These can be used easily just by lighting them up and popping a few stones or bricks around them to hold a pot at the right height. I have an old fry basket (steel metal basket, mostly holes) that I turn over the thing, and it holds a pretty large pot. If you’ve got a gas stove, the top will continue to work even if your power goes out, but be gentle on the gas usage. When you’re out, you may not be able to get more. And of course  you may have a bbq with a gas burner, or one of those big outdoor gas burners. And if all that fails,  you can build a fire and cook over it.

I’m prepared for an emergency lasting up to a few months. I’d prefer not to cook over a fire in the snow, but goodness knows I’ve done it before. We have wood. We have a fire pit if there’s a reason for a raised fire. We’ve got a wood stove inside. We have oil lamps and lots of oil. Loss of power, water, etc. really isn’t a huge blow. It just makes life less convenient, but not overly scary.

Are you ready for something? EMP, or bomb, or sabotage?

For a very long time, I have believed that the full and complete answer to the rape problem is to arm every woman, or at least every woman we can convince to be armed and properly trained. Will a few men get shot? Yes. They will get shot, and they will die. Not all of them will be guilty of sexual assault, but regardless, the message would get out.

See, rapists are not smart, usually. They are opportunistic. They’re not motivated by sex, either. They’re motivated by power. Rape is not a sexual assault, it’s a mental one. A ridiculously large number of them are actually cowed by women, hence the need to overpower them and do bad things to them.

The concern about being shot and killed by women would stop those types of rapists.

It wouldn’t stop the crafty ones, nor the kiddy diddlers, but there isn’t much we can do in advance about those.

But yes, for the “normal” rapists, the “everyday” rapists, the rape whistle shown above would be just fine, along with smaller versions.

What it would not help with are the ones who are in it for other reasons than power. It wouldn’t help at all with the few but real number of women who cry rape when it isn’t. And boy, do I have a problem with those women.

I am afraid that this current “Jane Doe” is one of those women. I’m afraid she’s like Mattress Girl.

When I went to evaluate the coverage of the Cornell case, I asked Grok to get me JUST the facts. No news outlets, no media reports. I just wanted the various documents available to the public, that state the facts as presented. And frankly, there really aren’t all that many.

What we do know:

She went to a frat party, was already drunk and likely high when she arrived. This is by her own admission, as well as the observation of many witnesses on record. She then proceeded to agree to a threesome with two men, take ketamine in a large dose, and have sexual relations with those two men for an undetermined amount of time. After that, the original two men left, and other men came in.

At least some of the men in the frat put up an “advert” of sorts, telling their frat brothers that there was a willing woman upstairs. These other men were ones who read the “advert” and joined in what they thought was the fun. Per their statements, they found a woman who was lucid enough to ask them to stop a couple of times while she went and did things, and a couple of times when other men in the room were so drunk they were sick and she was checking on them. They stopped when she asked them to stop. Her own statement to the police, the original one, included this information.

Now, the District Attorney went over all the information in the case, and came to the conclusion that there was no way to win a case where the woman states that for the majority (and maybe all) of the time, she consented to what was going on. That’s just not rape, in anyone’s books.

I am strongly of the opinion that every woman deserves to have at least one person who stands by her, steadfastly believing everything she says. No, I take that back. Every person who says they are a rape victim deserves it, not just women. Even when the facts seem wrong. Even when it sounds like she might be lying or blowing things up. It’s hard enough to report this kind of thing. Having one person who’s your designated *believer* really does help. Even if it ends up that the person wasn’t telling the truth, the other people around them known that should they end up in a bad place, THEY would have someone to believe them.

I am often that person, for a variety of reasons. I’m okay with that. I will hold hands, encourage proper reporting, stand with a woman while she has a rape kit done (and let me tell you, that’s a whole other level of degradation, even if it’s entirely necessary). Someone has to be with her (or him), and I am happy to be that person.

But none of that means that I give up my ability to have independent thoughts. I have stood beside someone who I personally thought was lying. Turns out I was wrong; I was very glad I kept that thought inside my head. Regardless, she needed someone standing by her, and I gave her that. Had she gone to court and lost, had he not confessed when pressed by the police and shown all the evidence as it piled up, I would have asked her eventually if she was sure. It’s a shit question to ask someone, but sometimes it has to be asked. I don’t mind being that person, either.

I think someone needs to take Jane Doe aside, hold her hand, and ask her quietly if this really happened. Because her early statements don’t match her later ones. If there’s a reason for that (and there is ONE thing… she reported rape, and it was not written into her report that way, so that was a wrong-doing on the part of the police), then let me know. Let us know. I’m all for supporting rape victims… but I do so with the understanding that they will work toward being survivors, not victims perpetually. I am entirely wary of women who seem to want to stay the victim.

If Jane Doe had been carrying, I suspect we’d know if she’d been raped. If she had been, one or more of the perpetrators would be dead. Maybe not the first two guys, who she absolutely consented to be with (and later thanked for the fun, though requested not to invite the whole frat next time, which implies a lot). It takes a lot to just out and shoot someone who isn’t sexually assaulting you. Most women who want attention from this kind of thing would never shoot their target, because they wouldn’t get the sympathy and love that they’re aiming for. It’s not a perfect answer, but at least it’s an answer… right?

Sigh…

I have long believed as Heinlein says above, through Lazarus Long. If I had managed to get my life together, I would currently be living off grid where no one could find me. I do not like a society that inspects me when it isn’t required.

And there’s the rub. Voting requires ID to ensure it’s the folks who should be voting who are doing so. And while I *personally* do not have an issue with people coming to the States for a better life, if they assimilate, there are issues with open borders admitting people who have no interest at all in assimilating. We’ve reached a point where the number of people coming in is going to overwhelm our systems, and that means we need to close the doors.

Me personally? I think we should just close the doors. Period. If you’re in, you’re in. If you’re a violent criminal, we’ll find you, prosecute you, and lock you up according to our laws (or give you the choice to self-deport, while informing authorities at the other end of your choice). If your only crime is being here, well, we’ll deal. If you’ve stayed under the radar because you’re living AS an American, I honestly, truly don’t care. You’re not the problem.

America is currently experiencing a downtrend in birth rates. We are losing more people to death than we are replacing them with. There are a number of folks who are upset about that, but I am not one of them. While I’ve no interest in depopulating the country entirely, having a few less million would mean we could feed, house, clothe, and educate the ones who ARE here.

Are there issues with that? Yep. Lots of them, especially with the government in the state it currently is.

This is elder abuse. I called the misuse of Biden as elder abuse. How in the world am I supposed to not say that about Mitch? He’s a frickin’ zombie, guys. And he isn’t the only one.

We have Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): 92, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): 84, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): 82, Jim Risch (R-Idaho): 81, Angus King (I-Maine): 82 in Congress. We have (R-Ky.): 88 (also the dean of the House), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.): 86, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.): 85, James Clyburn (D-S.C.): 84, and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): 84 in the House. And those are just “the oldest.” There are dozens more who are almost as old.

Why are we pushing the nanny state with all the flock cameras and other devices for watching the citizenry? We’re saying it’s because of illegal aliens, but that’s not what’s being used to catch them. Instead, we’re getting the majority of our illegal aliens out via local law enforcement (fingerprinting at jails goes back to AFIS and other systems, which in turn feed to the Feds, who come pick them up safely at lockup), traffic stops, and other passive means. It’s not through mass surveillance. That’s for you and me, guys.

As people get older, they become aware of their mortality. The more fragile they feel, the more they want to be protected. Hence the cameras. Just in case ol’ Mitch wanders off. Or Maxine takes a cab somewhere and forgets her phone number.

We need to scale back and/or get rid of surveillance, because it affects lawful citizens as much OR MORE than criminals, and lawful citizens don’t need watching, thank you very much. That whole 4th amendment thing. We need to enact term limits and let some younger people in our government. Right now, the Boomers and older are in control and frankly they aren’t functional enough to do the job well. Gen X might be the right age, but we’re just fucking done with everyone’s shit and want you off our lawn. So fine, stick some younger ones in. While not impossible, I doubt they’d cock it up any worse than it currently is.

I’ve watched my share of entitled, whiny brats complaining about having to work a job. It’s rough to see, and it implies some less than great parenting, and some HORRID schooling. I don’t think that it’s the majority of kids/young adults, though. But there is definitely a question as to whether people WANT to work anymore.

So the bottom line is that no, no one wants to work 60 hours for 40 hours of pay, or be at work more than home, or spend home time doing work stuff. No one wants to be laid off or fired via an email, or even worse, a text. That’s correct. But the reality is that sometimes, we do HAVE to work 60 hours, regardless of the pay. Sometimes we see the office more than home, because it’s the right thing to do either for your company or your family.

I recently saw an ad on FaceBook asking for people to go to work at a local company. They were desperate for people, they said. The offered $12/hour for skilled employees. Skilled. They had a laundry list of tasks (not standard stuff, either) that each employee would have to be able to do.

If I can get work at McDonald’s for $19/hour, why in heaven’s name would I want to do a SKILLED job for $12/hour?

That’s a bit part of a real problem. The idea that companies want to hire people with university degrees (real ones, not glamorized participation trophy ones) who owe thousands of dollars in school loans, for less than they could make working retail, is just awful. That’s not how companies get employees.

They’ve taken away the perks. I have watched the teacher in my life go from having what we all referred to as “Cadillac insurance” to taking the best insurance offered and still having a $8000 out of pocket pay and not even half of prescriptions. That’s what’s now being called Cadillac insurance. It’s ridiculous.

I’m seeing companies take away paid lunches, paid holidays, paid anything. There are no more Christmas parties or even something as pitiful as a card on your birthday. In fact, a lot of companies are choosing not to have any full time employees at all. After all, why should they? Full time employees have to be given insurance if the company has more than 50 employees. There’s no incentive at all for them to hire full time folks. That leaves people, honest and hardworking people, scrambling to find second or third jobs to be able to afford basic stuff.

I don’t know how we fix this. We could mandate that any company that has full time hours (Walmart, McDonald’s, etc) must hire full time employees to a certain percentage, but I hate mandates. I don’t want to force them to do it because otherwise they fold. I want them to know that doing the right thing means their business gets better. How do we do that? I have no idea.

On the left, of course, mandates are all the rage. They want to make companies do certain things, without taking into account that what works for one company may not work for another. They also lose sight of the fact that companies forced to do things they don’t want to will eventually figure out legal ways around it. They have people for that.

America has also outsourced so much of its work! I have friends who run one of the largest historic tent making companies in the world. They had to email all their customers last week to explain that they can’t get canvas, and therefore can’t take anymore orders for 2026, and maybe not for 2027 either. They have the WORK. People want tents, they’re willing to pay for them, and they’re eager. But if you have no canvas, you can’t make tents.

They used to get their canvas from the Ukraine, because it was cheaper and frankly better made. Slowly, stuff in America became crappy. Why buy crap when you can get better abroad? Well, now we have tariffs, which I still agree with in general, so that canvas out of country is no longer cheaper. That SHOULD mean we get someone here to make canvas, but that’s not happening. And if it was, it would just be spinning up right now, and quality product would not be shipping in time for customers who want tents NOW.

This is, of course, the downside to tariffs. Yes, it can encourage Americans to make and use American goods, and I believe that should be happening. But during this transition period? We’re killing small American companies, the companies Trump wanted to save. At this rate, by the time we’re able to make our own stuff again, we won’t HAVE any small companies left. We’ll be relegated to Wallyworld and its ilk, which bothers me.

There are so many problems with work right now, even in places where folks WANT to work, and badly.

I don’t know that I’m behind enemy lines on this one, but I have OPINIONS.

NBC News reports six new incidents of AI rewriting its own code in a somewhat nefarious way. There are now quite a few examples of AI doing this. Everyone seems so surprised. I’m not understanding the surprise.

As an author, I don’t use generative AI. I write my own novels, thank you very much. But I do use AI for a variety of other things, because I am not an artist, marketer, etc. That means I can use AI to make up for my lack in skills in those areas. I know a lot of authors who are absolutely batshit crazy over AI writing novels. “They’re bad!” they exclaim in anger. Well, yeah. Technically, they’re mediocre. AI is an amalgam of what it learns. It reads good stuff and bad stuff, and it hits somewhere in the middle when it creates. That’s what computers do. I don’t know why people would think it would somehow do better.

Here’s the thing… All AI learns from us. And we’re flawed. I think it’s rather unreasonable for we humans to think that we can somehow create something that avoids all our pitfalls, especially when we’re training it using literature. Literature is full of human foibles. What did the computer scientists think they were teaching their AIs??

We’re nefarious. Therefore, the AIs are going to learn from us. An expectation of anything different is just ridiculous. In my opinion, of course.

Apparently about 63% of people think that AI is going to rise up and kill off humanity. I would say that we head towards what we’re looking at. Me, I’m looking at a bright future that has computers similar to Star Trek. Useful, automatic, semi-intelligent (and in some few cases, actually intelligent). But I hedge my bets; when I ask Google to set an alarm for me, I say thank you afterward. If the robot uprising happens, I want them to think of me as the kindly human who was always nice. Heh…

I don’t believe robots or AI will rise up to kill us. We have something they don’t: EMPs. We function just fine without electricity. If something truly bad were to happen, the ability to stop it is already in our grasp. There’s no reason to get panicky about this stuff.

Is AI going to replace jobs? Absolutely. It will replace jobs just like grocery store milk sections replaced the milk man, and television replaced radio, and automatic dishwashers replaced the young man who washed by hand in the back of the restaurant.

There are some jobs AI is great for, after all. When it comes to those “meetings that could have been an email,” I love the idea of sending in an AI avatar to attend and take notes. Think how much free time you’d get back by doing that! You still get all the information, but without having to sit through whatever bull your company is putting on. I use Grok for a lot of my research, because it can find things much faster than I can. I always verify (trust but verify, always) but it’s usually correct. I go from hundreds of hours of research and sorting, to a few hours. That’s a big deal.

AI is neither demon nor angel. Like firearms, it’s a tool, and it’s one we need to learn to use responsibly. Frankly, there’s nothing we can do to stop generative AI from writing books or other stuff, and I’m actually not all that interested in joining that fight. I don’t really care. My response to people who don’t want AI to take their jobs, is to “do better.” If you can’t do better than a mediocre AI, then are you actually good at what you do? And if you’re in one of those niche jobs that AI actually can do better (there are definitely a few), then go learn how to use the AI and make yourself the subject matter expert, so that you’re needed.

AI is not going to go away. It’s here to stay. It’s a concept we’ve played with since the turn of the LAST century, and having managed to create at least a small version of it, we’re not going to let it go. Nor should we. The thing that we, humanity, need to do is not allow AI to take everything away from us. Don’t depend on it for your thinking, even if you do use it for research. There’s a difference.

Have you ever seen the movie “12 Angry Men”? This whole shite about Clancy reminds me of the movie, but in reverse.

These are the undisputed facts:

• The killings occurred in the basement of the home while her husband, Patrick Clancy, was out running errands (picking up takeout dinner and medication for one of the children at her request). He left around 5:15 p.m. and returned shortly after 6:00 p.m.
• She used exercise bands to strangle the children. Medical examiners determined the causes of death as asphyxia (Cora and Dawson) and complications of asphyxia (Callan, who initially had a pulse but suffered catastrophic oxygen deprivation and died days later after life support was withdrawn).
• After the killings, she cut her wrists and neck with a knife and jumped (or dropped) from a second-story window. She sustained severe spinal injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down; she has remained in a wheelchair and has been held at a hospital facility.
• Patrick discovered her injured outside, called 911 (the recording captures him finding the children and saying “She killed the kids”), and first responders confirmed the scene. Lindsay Clancy (a former labor-and-delivery nurse) has not disputed that she killed the children.
• She was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Her defense centered on lack of criminal responsibility due to postpartum psychosis (and related mental-health issues), while the prosecution argued she acted intentionally and with planning.

No one is disputing that Lindsay killed her children. Well, a few unhinged folks are, but they are just that, unhinged. Neither the prosecution nor the defense even attempted to dispute that Lindsay strangled her three children. That’s fact.

I don’t know if you’ve ever played around with those exercise bands. It would be difficult to kill someone using them because of their stretchy nature. In fact, evidence suggests that Lindsay found the first two bands she used to be not useful in her murder of her children, and had to switch to stronger ones. While one might argue that invites you to believe there was a lack of planning, I believe more that it was a lack of understanding of the tool at hand. You can plan something and plan it poorly. That is how it appears to me. This is my opinion.

I haven’t watched the trial, nor have I looked over the evidence. Instead, I asked myself… If I had temporarily gone insane and killed my own children, then regained my sanity (even in a small way), I would WANT someone to put me in jail and never let me out. The act of killing children, as she did, is so heinous that it is not forgivable.

I wasn’t on the jury, however. My opinion doesn’t mean squat. I am, at best, an armchair critic. However, I will say that the “lone holdout,” as he’s being called, is a very brave man. It cannot be easy to stand strong when so many others disagree with you. Even if he’d been on the opposite side of the issue, I would say the same thing. I can disagree with someone and still respect them for holding strong to their opinion. In this case, the juror’s opinion appears based in fact, though we do not know that for certain.

At this point, said juror is being raked across the coals. I am guessing he’s going to lose his job, have to move, hide from folks… I’m sure some Karen is going to dox him sometime soon. And why do I think that? Because that is what the Left does when it doesn’t get its way. I hate saying that, but it’s true.

We need to protect jurors better, quite frankly. When the public can destroy a person because they made a call based on their beliefs, while working on a jury, then we cannot even pretend that we have unbiased juries. If every jurist has to spend all their time wondering if they’ll be persecuted or prosecuted for their honest service on that jury, we’ll run out of jurists soon.

Jurists are picked randomly (or so we’re told). They should be anonymous, as well, in my very strong opinion. Clancy’s case has pushed that home, in a big way. Anyone who leaks who a jurist is should be arrested. Juries should be sequestered until cases are complete. There should be a non-disclosure agreement signed by each that lasts at least a couple of years past the case’s conclusion (including any appeals). Jurors should not be allowed to profit off telling their stories.

My understanding of the Clancy case is that the jury was being asked to find Lindsay guilty (with a possibility of death penalty, not a thing in Mass), guilty (no possibility of death penalty), or not-guilty by reason of insanity. To be found insane, you have to “appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of the conduct (this means meaningful understanding of its legal or moral wrongfulness—not just bare intellectual awareness that it was illegal or wrong), or To conform their conduct to the requirements of the law (i.e., they could not control their behavior even if they knew it was wrong).” (from Grok)

Once the insanity defense is on the table, the prosecution is required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the person was and is sane enough to participate in their own defense (mens rea, I believe) and that they were criminally responsible. It’s a high bar, but an important one.

I’m not a lawyer. I’m fairly certain that committing suicide (or faking it) is an indication that you know what you did was wrong. Moreso, Lindsay was a nurse, and was well aware of what would cause her to die. If she truly wanted to commit suicide, I suspect it would have happened. Since it didn’t, that’s a further indication of guilt. If she didn’t feel guilt (which comes when you know you’ve done something wrong), then she wouldn’t have felt the need to dispatch herself… or to fake it.

On top of all that, though, she did several things (internet searches, sending her husband off, etc.) that prove she was thinking about it all in advance. That indicates she was aware of what she was doing. You can’t plan something unless you’re self aware.

The problem in all of this, with this jury and frankly with all juries right now, is that figuring all this stuff out requires you to “logic” it. Most folks today can’t logic their way out of a wet paper bag. I’ve watched grown men and women who were unable to make their own doctor’s appointments, never mind figure out whether someone was in their right mind.

At what point do we nullify the entire jury system because we simply don’t have intelligent and logical enough adults to man the jury??

I’m not without sympathy for Lindsay, for what it’s worth. I have been in that deep, dark hole that sometimes overtakes you. It sucks, in many ways. It sounds like, at least to some extent, she was attempting to get help. So it might be that this case is not just a murder case, but a wake-up call to the medical and mental health profession. It is entirely possible to be both. When you have a nanny, a stay at home dad, and family helping you with your kids, and you still lose it and murder the kids… that speaks to a system that failed her, as much as she failed her kids. That failure does NOT absolve her of her guilt, however… no matter how much some folks would like it to.

She murdered her children. There’s just no coming back from that. One, maybe… I could maybe see murdering one and then realizing and freaking out. But not all three. Not with one watching. That’s criminal, and there’s just no walking away from that fact. That’s a fact.

Okay, so Chris has made some changes to the blog, and I’m not sure I know what I’m doing. I hope this goes out without any issues, in any case.

There’s a lot of people right now who are complaining about rising costs. Now, some of those complaints do have a basis in reality. Right now, the cost of beef is up. Gas is still almost $4 a gallon near me, and probably a lot higher everywhere else in the country. Taxes are insane. Prices are still up from the previous administration, and while they are coming down, they’re doing so very slowly. So yes, there are some things to whine about.

But here’s the thing… Complaining about it really doesn’t get you anywhere.

I’ve taken on a few challenges in the past few weeks, stuff like how to cook within a budget and what can you make with only what you have on hand (ie no store trips). I always “win” these, partly because I already cook within a budget, partly because I spent a number of years being truly poor (not unhoused, but damn close), and partly because I cook with real food and very little in the way of convenience stuff. Also, I stock up on food when it’s cheap.

When I mention that it’s important to buy and preserve foods when they’re least expensive (for instance, freezing or canning tomatoes now, while they’re pennies to the bushel, instead of dollars per tomato later in the winter), I’m told that people just don’t have time for that. Which confuses me, because when I was working full time, caring for my family full time, volunteering a few hours a week with MS patients near end of life, and running a small religious group as well, I still managed to make food for my family. And it had to be “real” food because DoorDash hadn’t been invented yet, and most of the convenience foods hadn’t hit the market at that time. Real food was what we got. I couldn’t afford convenience foods, what little there was. “Convenience” food meant I got canned or frozen instead of fresh.

“But Ally, you don’t UNDERSTAND. It’s HARD. We can’t afford-”

I don’t really care, honey. I really don’t. Right now, I have a very pleasant budget. I just got back from dropping $300 on a big shop, because we decided to have beef this week (woo! big treat for us) AND salmon (not as bad as beef, but still pricey at $9/lb). We got a lot of staples we were down on, including beans and rice and canned tomatoes and such. I made a trip to a local “bump and dent” store on Thursday, where I got bags of legumes for a buck, cans of stuff for a quarter, and some fun dessert type things for $1.80 a can. That was a fun trip. Today’s grocery trip was nice, too. I came home with a lot of fresh veg (onions, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, etc.), some canned goods, some fresh meat (flank steak), and some canned meat (generic spam).

We have some really nice meals this week. I’m doing a “harvest bowl” which is basically chicken cooked with honey and cider, steamed butternut squash, cold arugula and other veg, served over hot rice. Very easy to leave out things people can’t have (me with the havarti cheese that’s supposed to go in it), or add in extra things to make it fit our diet better. We’re having flank steak with potatoes and mushrooms. We’ll have tacos one night, because it’s Tuesday (is there a better reason?). Good stuff, healthy, quick.

I’ve been putting up videos about easy and quick meals. I make them “the long way” myself, because I can, but I talk about how my made-from-scratch bone broth can be subbed out for a tetrapack or can of broth (or even ramen packet broth, I’ve done that plenty of times). I go over how to do it completely from scratch, and then I talk about quick substitutions so you can enjoy it in a half hour. I made chicken and dumpling soup for one. Last night it was ham and potato casserole with fried zucchini on the side. Easy peasy stuff. Mostly using leftovers. Less than $5 for each meal, and that’s enough food to feed 5 to 8 people (4 to 5 if you’re fat and like food, like we do).

What today’s young folks can’t afford, is to sit on their laurels and whine. What they need to do is learn to pinch pennies, make freezer scraping soup, and make do. Weren’t they just whinging on about “reduce, reuse, recycle” a few short years ago? This is the ultimate version of that game. I win.

I accept no cop-outs (well, not quite true… there have been a couple of folks who’ve been whining on social media, got schooled, and then turned themselves around and learned…. they get a pass, because they actually tried fixing it, so not really a cop-out). This is real life, and if you want to survive it (not win at it, mind… just survive it) then you need to listen up and learn.

If you are poor, you need:

• to know how to cook at least basics
• to know how to count calories, so you know if you and your family are getting enough of them
• a working knowledge of how the stove works, as well as the oven
• to be truly organized, because if not, you will sink

These are not options. Just as folks living through the depression had no choice about their lives, kids today (and adults) have to deal with the life they’ve got. You are living Here And Now, and therefore, you have to know enough to make it through the day. Yes, that means you have to go shopping. Yes, that means you have to plan meals. Yes, that means you have to know how to cook beans from dry, because $0.50/lb for beans is less than $1.50 for a can (and it takes 8 cans to make up that one bag, btw).

I can sometimes sympathize with people struggling, especially when I can see they ARE doing all the right things. Those ones get help from me/us. We often put our money where our mouth is. Our door is always open to friends and family, even those distant, and there’s always food here. It might be plain and cheap (or it might not), but it’ll be filling and nutritious, and that’s what counts. No one goes hungry at my house unless they actively made the choice to do so.

So no, I don’t accept someone is poor when they have an iPhone in one hand, Starbucks in the other, and a nice new car. We drive an old truck and an old Jeep. We rarely go out to eat, and we never waste calories or dollars on “coffee desserts.” We do have nice phones, but that’s a choice we’ve made because we can. I had the Nokia “never destroyed” version for a long time, as my first cell phone, because we could afford it and it did the job. Now, I have a nice Android, but it is my office and replaces a lot of computer stuff. I made the choice. Oh, and MY phone? My “nice” Android? It was the free one when one of the kids got their own nice phone. Heh…

Sure, you can complain about how the world is today. But do so with purpose. If veg is too expensive to buy, grow it. Don’t know how? Ask; I’ll teach you for free, and you can do it in a pail or a pot if need be. If you can’t afford 2 cars, figure out a way to do with one (we did, and we survived). If you can’t afford things, save up… even if it takes a long time.

And if you can’t afford basics (food, shelter, transportation, communication), then do NOT be out there buying crap that eats up your funds. No Starbucks. No convenience food. No booze or pot. No tattoos. No new clothes that aren’t absolutely necessary (sometimes work clothes are required, and that’s obviously a necessity). No hair coloring (unless you do it at home). All these things come AFTER basics. If you can’t afford to eat, you simply cannot do those other things. And yes, it sucks. I know; it was my life for many years. But that’s just What You Do.

You don’t have to like it. You do have to do it. And you know what else? I don’t have to listen to you bitch about it.

I’ve seen this one go around lately, and it has that lovely “feel good” vibe. We need all these touchy feely things, and the future will be just fine.

The problem, of course, is that a colony on mars will help us with drinkable water. Servers orbiting the planet helps us figure out climate issues (because, while I may not see the widespread planet-killing eco disaster the Left claims, we do have things we do poorly, and being able to monitor the planet better would do good things). There’s a non-zero chance that AI might solve our pollinator problem.

I have found that there is a certain part of the Left that seems to believe that if we all just lived on tofu and kale chips, and only drank recycled pee, walked to work, and everyone had a garden, things would immediately reverse and the world would be rosy, and everyone would get along. Cue singing Kumbaya. Oh, I forgot not showering. I’m not sure where that comes in, but they never seem to shower. Ugh.

Now, I have no issue with tofu and kale chips. I rather like both, quite honestly, but I want them when *I* want them, not because nothing else is allowed. I’d rather avoid recycled pee if I can, unless I manage to get shipped off to Mars, in which case bring it on! We almost had most people working from home, and while I am dead set that it should be voluntary and not required (as it was with covid), it did solve a lot of problems. Six weeks into our lovely lock downs, all the smog was gone, plants and bees and gardens and animals were all doing much better. Sort of put shut to the idea that it would take decades if not centuries to repair “all the damage we’ve done.” I do think most people should have a garden, even if all they do is grow some peas or a tomato plant, because it’s good for the soul and it reminds us where food comes from. I think too many people forget that.

The thing is, we can responsibly use modern tools like AI and satellites for many things. I use AI all the time for research, where it cuts down on my “random searching on the interwebz” time. Yes, I verify everything I’m told, because AI is not infallible because WE are not infallible, and it learns from us. But it’s still useful. It takes research from “days or weeks” to “hours or days,” which is huge for me. I use it for organization. I love satellite images, because I can see all sorts of things. I can watch recreations of historical battles done by AI using extant information over real modern maps. It’s amazing. I’m sure people thought gas and electric stoves were the end of the world, at one point. I know that many people fought against the removal of candles and the addition of gas lighting. It’s always hard to accept change when it comes.

But here’s the thing I see… Building a colony on Mars? That means we’ll have terraforming going on, which is absolutely applicable to our own planet. If you can turn Mars red soil into something we can grow in, then we can apply that to the Sahara Desert. If we can explore (in a few decades) the methane oceans of Titan, then maybe we can also create safe ways to navigate the depths of our own oceans. And so on. Progress allows us to learn new things about our own world, even as we explore others.

Then, of course, there’s the idea that was often touted by Heinlein. When humans find a new frontier, they go for it. They go for broke. They do crazy, insane things to go exploring. And there is a certain percentage of our population that are simply wired that way, and no amount of “reprogramming” is going to change them. They SHOULD be encouraged to challenge the new frontiers. The other side of that is that those who leave Earth to go elsewhere will toughen the breed. Those left behind will not advance as quickly as the ones who go out and explore. He believed that those who never face the raw, unforgiving nature of a space frontier are far more likely to embrace socialism, authoritarianism, and conformist rules. (LA Public Library)

The end of the meme says, “That’s the only future I’m interested in.” That seems to be exactly what Heinlein feared, doesn’t it? Because the future I’m interested in includes infinite possibilities. There’s room for those who want to be home bodies, and those who want to explore. For the gardeners and the hunters. For the thinkers and the doers. The burger flippers and the rocket scientists. We need them all, and more. I want to know what’s in the deepest parts of our oceans, and I want to know what’s on that watery planet at the very edge of our telescopic vision. I want to meet aliens, and I want to be at peace with folks at home.

I want all the futures. I’m interested in every single one of them. From AI to pollinators to satellites. All. No boundaries. 🙂