Month: August 2025

Bots Don’t Go for Spit

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What a crazy day.  We have a dog whose been sick for three days and hasn’t kept down a meal in over forty-eight hours.  I’ve discovered that our veterinary office is as useless as my dentist.  Other than routine shots during office hours everything else gets referred to either an urgent care practice or the local university animal hospital that performs procedures in a state-of-the-art facility for which you will be charged tens of thousands of dollars.  They even have a dog psychiatrist who became famous for prescribing Prozac to hyper-aggressive breeds.

After six hundred dollars’ worth of tests, it looks like a bad case of viral or bacterial enteritis.  She’s still wiped out but she’s holding stuff down even if it’s only water.  But it’s been a long week already and I’m kind of beat.  But let’s see what’s going on in my head.

I was interested to see how much traction Trump was making with the Europeans and Zelensky.  Here is a group of people who hate his guts but because of the skill he has working with groups of people who hate each other’s guts they realize he may be able to provide them with a solution to the nightmare that Biden and the globalists talked them into.  So, they’re gathered around him hoping for a miracle but fearing instead a kick to the groin.  But I don’t think I’ll tackle that story yet.  Putin and Zelensky are the oddest couple on planet Earth and I want to see how that plays out before putting in my two cents.

Instead let’s talk about bots.  I was reading an article that said that more than half the traffic on the internet is bots.  Now most of this isn’t malicious.  Some of it is search engines updating the contents of the internet.  But some of it is fake traffic for “influencers” and other sites.  And someone is paying for these clicks either directly as a service or an advertiser who thinks he’s getting eyes on his ad and instead has non-humans clicking on his ad with no chance of a sale possible.

So only fifty percent of the internet is real.  But some people think it’s much worse than that.  What if ninety percent is bots?  Now granted with the upgrades to “AI” these bots can make a very decent showing when they heckle you in the comments section or an X post.  But even the most dedicated keyboard warrior has to be at least slightly deflated to find out that nine out of his last ten owned libs are just some lines of code in the Matrix.

And thus, it seems to point to the need in the future for paywalls; not just to bring in some return on investment but just in order to know if it’s really someone with DNA and a pulse who’s talking to you or reading your stuff or even calling you a moron.  Because that’s the one thing that a bot won’t do.  It won’t pony up any cash whatsoever.  Bots don’t go for spit.  They never have and they never will.

21AUG2025 – Quote of the Day

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The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)

Vital spark of heav’nly flame!

Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:

Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,

Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Stanza 1

Hark! they whisper; angels say,

Sister spirit, come away!

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!

Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears

With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

Alexander Pope

When Will the Supreme Court Overturn Obergefell v. Hodges?

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Hillary Clinton thinks the Supreme Court will overturn Obergefell v. Hodges (the decision that discovered the right to gay marriage in the US Constitution) before the 2026 election.

I think she is drawing an analogy from the fact that the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 in advance of the November 2022 mid-term elections.  Of course, there could be blowback from this decision that affects the midterms.  It might even cause the loss of the House of Representatives.  But you know, I kind of doubt it.  I think it’s a mistake to wait to make these decisions.  The future is uncertain and the opportunity that exists may be temporary.  What’s the expression?  “Strike while the iron is hot.”

Throwing abortion and gay marriage back under the jurisdiction of the states sort of takes the monolithic nature of the decisions away.  After all, the blue states will continue on without change and the red states will probably put it on the ballot and let their own people decide (well, except for very, very red states where it will be banned by their legislatures and governors).  I wonder if there might even be some states that allow gay marriage but forbid the adoption of children by these “families.”

Now I guess it’s possible that the Supreme Court might wait until after the midterms.  And it’s even possible that the court might uphold Obergefell v. Hodges.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see John Roberts vote to uphold it.  But I think the votes are there to overturn it.  And this brings up another case; Lawrence v. Texas.  This was the decision that made homosexuality a protected constitutional practice.  Is it probable that this decision would also be reconsidered?  Maybe it’s too much to hope for but since we’re seeing fifty-year precedents overturned why not this relatively recent ruling too?

You know, it’s not every day that I find myself in agreement with something Hillary Clinton says.  But in this particular case I think she’s correct.  I think the court will rule on Obergefell v. Hodges in 2026 and let the voters sort out how they want their states to stand on gay marriage.  And in the long run that is the healthiest way for these things to be handled.  We’re supposed to be living under a federal Constitution that allows most of the power to remain with the sovereign states.  Thinking that California and Mississippi would have the same opinions on abortion and gay marriage is ludicrous. But in the same way as many ludicrous actions have been taken by the federal government over the last half century and are now being adjusted it only makes sense that the Supreme Court is also going through a reevaluation of unjustified decisions that strayed well beyond the bounds of Constitutional authority and created laws that had no right being written.

My hope is that this trend continues and that President Trump has the chance to appoint several more justices to ensure that the conservative majority is protected and even increased over the next three and a half years.  And in fact, I hope he has the opportunity to replace many Democratic federal judges with conservatives, especially in the blue districts like Washington DC, the Northeast and the west coast.  But my thanks to Hillary for bringing this opinion to my attention.  It brought a smile to my face.  Now how often has she done that?  As far as I can remember not since 2016.

A Window into Death

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This morning when I woke up the house was noticeably cooler than it’s been in a month.  It was sixty degrees or thereabouts.  So, Fall is making its entrance felt.  Lots of leaves under the maple tree and the grass is drying out.  The raspberry canes are still producing tons of berries but the lower leaves are all turning yellow.  Well, the kids go back to school on Monday and so this is the end of summer by decree and by degree.  So be it.

Well, it was a terrific summer weatherwise and we did most of the things we wanted to.  And we had a big party at the end.  So now it’s time to anticipate the good stuff that comes with Fall.  Well?  I guess the only thing about Fall that’s good is the long evenings allow us to watch old movies and plan for the holidays.  Certainly, there’s more to do than that.  Fall is when you’re supposed to do the repairs and weatherproofing that prevents winter from doing a lot of damage.  And I do plan to do that stuff.  But let’s be honest here.  I hate that stuff.  I’ve been talking about getting some tarps to cover over the woodwork on the balconies and the outside staircase for about ten years and I haven’t gotten any closer to doing it yet.  I’m just an immensely lazy man whose strong suit is dithering, waffling, vacillating and procrastination.  Of course I blame Camera Girl.  If she were half as good at nagging as she is at cooking, I’d be a model husband.  But it’s the cross I bear.

So, a couple of nights ago TCM had “Psycho” on and Camera Girl was watching it.  Well, I was busy but I noted her choice in passing.  And while I was working in the dining room, I could hear snatches of music and dialog.  And I could tell it was getting toward Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh’s) fateful arrival at the Bates Motel.  So, I dropped what I was doing and sat through Marion’s supper with Norman and all the way through her murder and subsequent deposition in the “swamp.”  By the way, how much of Southern California actually has any swampland?

Now I’ve seen Psycho dozens of times.  And the murder scene has always struck me as well done.  It’s well staged and well shot.  And having seen it so many times allowed me to watch it this time analytically.  And I thought that the critical snatch of film is when Marion is luxuriating in the shower and the camera shifts to the room through the shower curtain and you see the door open and a silhouette appear in the doorway.

That is the moment when death has entered the frame.  The actual killing with the blood and piercing, screaming “music” is almost an anticlimax.

And then I watched Marion Crane die from loss of blood.  And it was remarkably well acted and achingly sad.  Here was a young woman whose impatience to be with the man she loved had driven her to steal an enormous amount of money.  But just as she’s figured out what she needs to do to escape from the trap she’s gotten herself into, fate steps in and feeds her into a buzz saw of insanity.

The rest of the movie is a murder mystery and a psychological horror show.  But the end of the murder scene is a tiny window into an intensely poignant moment; the death of a human being and specifically the death of a beautiful young woman.  Janet Leigh’s face conveys the reality that Marion Crane’s brain is shutting down from lack of blood and her world has shrunk down to just trying to grasp the shower curtain with her hand.  And then she dies and her body lies crumpled on the floor and her unfocussed eye stares into space.  That’s the best acting in the movie.

So, despite the spectacle from then on, the interesting part of the movie is the first forty minutes that record Marion Crane’s date with destiny.  And I’ll include her conversation with Norman.  He does communicate his pathetic version of what he thinks the world is about.  And in some sense, he provides a sounding board to allow her to think about what to do about her own private trap.

Well, anyway, it’s Fall and old movies are the thing to do.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 18AUG2025 – A Miracle?

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What we have is a miracle. To be honest after 2020’s lopsided “defeat” I figured the Democrats had a lock on things at least through 2028. The reality was that Biden was a REAL mess and the infighting within the White House made it look like there were three or four different factions fighting for control of the Presidential puppet. That and the choice of the clearly DEI VP candidate (Biden SAID he was going to choose a black female outright) who was not even competent in her previous tasks lead to a result that baffled the Democrat pundits come November 2024.

Trump and his team have been going gangbusters. Not that there haven’t been issues. Someone that understands engineer types needed to soothe Mr. Musk’s feathers in particular praising his team for what they did get done against incredible odds. Getting USAID under control has done much to starve the Democrat punditry and nomenaclatura. The Trump people also had less control of the Senate, the President Pro-tem is slow walking things. In addition, there seem to be lots of district and appellate court nominations going wanting and many deputy positions also unfilled. This is where the current troubles are. That said for 7-8 months into a 4 year term they’re not doing too badly given the headwinds they’re sailing against.

2026 is going to be a battle Royal. This is do or die for the Dems. If they can’t take back either the House or the Senate this just keeps rolling on for 2 more years and likely there would be strong restrictions on the remote voting the Democrats are so fond of. If the Democrats can get one arm they can tie things up and maybe even negotiate some minor wins as many Republicans try to play nice. This is like playing nice with a nest of Black Widow spiders but somehow some Republicans fail to perceive this.

Honestly, where the heck the Democrats go in 2028 baffles me. in the last decade or so there have been 3 wings to the Democrats, The Clinton wing, The Obama Wing, and the AOC/Bernie/Squad wing. The Clinton “middle of the road” (it ain’t middle by at least three rows of tall trees) wing seems to be heading to dormancy/decline. Newsome is sort of their kind of candidate charismatic, and he’s positioning towards the “middle” although like the Clintons before him his real positions are far to the left of what he’s staking out. The Obama wing really has no one. Mrs. Obama may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but she is smart enough to know she doesn’t want the job. Most of the Biden appointees are absolute messes (e.g. Pete Buttigieg, who couldn’t even manage to not run DOT into the ground). The Squad has some known names like Ocasio-Cortez, but none play well outside deep blue enclaves. I suspect if Mamdani wins the NYC Mayoral post, he’ll be so awful he’ll make Mayor Dinkins look like Mayors Koch or Giuliani. That will sour red and purple US districts to ANY of the Squad/Bernie type candidates. So I think we get at least 1 term of Vance. This crosses the 2030 barrier and may mean a more precise census.

No it’s not a golden era. To fix things we REALLY need huge advantages, 2/3 in both houses and 3/4 (38) of the state legislatures, so amendments could be moved through to pin down some things (e.g. Citizenship, Census taking, Supreme court judge numbers, etc.). But it is surely that worldline is far superior to what would have happened if Dems had remained in control. Down that path lay some variant of Mr. Schlicter’s Peoples Republic at best.