Showing posts with label Artificial Intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artificial Intelligence. Show all posts

Sunday, September 13, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 155th Edition. AI will kill us all.

The Terminator.

I don't know if it will, but that's the prediction being made by those working on it.

And within ten years.



Frankly, I think AI is wholly negative and that we'd be better off it it was impossible to develop. But it isn't, and we've never been able to restrain anything we've developed.  What I think the likely consequences are, however, is that it proves so destructive it may end up undoing much of the computer development that's come to date, as a defense to it.

Trump assures us that whatever comes out of it will be "mostly good".

Nothing good will come out of it whatsoever.

Boo

Ted Cruz was so loudly booed that he could hardly be heard in an ESPN interview from Austin.

Cruz deserves to be booed.  He's one of worst examples of Republican toadyism in Congress today.

Big statute

Donald Trump, who was in Ireland when I last checked, has proposed that  a 30-foot “Washington Colossus” be built to replace a modernist sculpture outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  He's ordering  the institution to put on a Washington exhibition in advance of the late President's 300th birthday.

It's interesting that Trump is interested in Washington.  Washington would not have been keen on Trump.

Trump doesn't like the piece of modernist art that's in front of the Smithsonian.  It doesn't do much for me either, but I don't hate it.  

The odd interesting thing here is that Trump spends so much time messing with the architecture of Washington D. C.  A big statute of George Washington wouldn't necessarily be bad, as long as it wasn't gilded, but Trump's taste in things is generally complete crap.

Trump golfs in Ireland.  M'eh

Classic example of street level Irish speech, which is often really foul.  Posted under fair use exception.

Tá Trump ag imirt gailf in Éirinn. B’fhéidir go mbeidh an t-ádh linn agus go bhfanfaidh sé ann.

An opinion that nobody cares about.

Trump ventured an opinion that Ireland should be united, by which he meant that Northern Ireland should be incorporated into the Irish republic.

That immediately brought rebuke from Na hUltaigh, who didn't appreciate the US President making the comment.  Southern Irish, who have protested his presence in their country, most likely just ignored it.

At any rate, this isn't something that a US President has any business commenting on in the first place.

And, speaking of comments. . .

Open the North Sea

A reporter asked Trump when petroleum prices were going to go down, which was a veiled way to basically saying when is your stupid war going to end, Donald.

Trump replied that oil prices in Ireland would go down as soon as the Irish opened the North Sea.

Wha?


The North Sea is between Great Britain and Scandinavia.

In terms of water depth, while the North Sea is deep, it is shallow enough to be exploited and the seabed is associated with the continental landmass, which is why there are petroleum deposits there.

And the plan is. . .?

FWIW, the North Sea is reaching its terminal production date pretty quick.  Most of the petroleum has already been extracted, at least from the British areas.  BP is pulling out.

On this, it was North Sea petroleum that made Norway rich.  Norway is expanding its production, but the time is coming.

It's coming for Wyoming too.

The plan?

Well, there isn't one. Screaming at the news seems to be the plan.

Shutting down the supply

It's not only the case that King Donald has not managed to restore pre war shipping conditions to the Persian Gulf, over the past week new hazardous conditions were created in Red Sea by the Houthis, Iranian allies and clients, who further caused Saudi Arabia to shut down a transarabian pipeline. All petroleum is back up over $100/bbl.

And in spite of what the Trump administration would have people believe, Venezuelan oil will take at least four years to hit the market in significant quantities to matter, if not ten.

Inflation

Inflation is clearly decelerating even with this slight uptick.

Keven Hassett.

Um. . .okay.

Chickens.

Chuck Gray and Harriet Hageman are refusing to debate their opponents.

That fact alone should mean that they forfeit any votes in the upcoming election.

Their refusal is arrogant at best.

It's noteworthy that neither one of them is any good at debating under stress, and debates this time would be stressful.  Both of them tend to just go hostile when pressed.  

Voters shouldn't let either of them get away with this.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 154th Edition.Trump's approval rating in Wyoming falls from 75% to 54%. Privation. The idiotic "republic not a democracy" line surfaces again. Viking funerals. Miley.

Friday, July 31, 2026

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. The screwworm edition.

Exports of petroleum products and capital goods jumped to record highs reducing the U.S. trade deficit. 

The capital goods item is interesting and I haven't seen it explained. That is a positive trend, if sustainable. The oil exportation one is not as it depletes a diminishing resource at the expense of U.S. consumers. A lot of it seems to be related to AI exports, which isn't necessarily good, aircraft production, and war related purchases.  If all that is correct, it won't be sustainable at the current levels, probably.

Screwworms have reappeared in Texas after a sixty year hiatus.  The Trump administration is blaming the Biden Administration, as that's its default thing to do, but the Trumpistas lifted protections that were in place and allowed importation of Mexican cattle via ports in a probable attempt to lower beef prices. This is likely to have the opposite effect.  It's a more likely cause, although there were concerns about animals moving across the border illegally during the Biden Administration.

Mexico itself was screwworm free as of 1991.  Somehow that got reversed one way or another, and now the problem is back.  Given that, it probably was coming back no matter what.  It is a major crisis.

Nobody has cited the weather, but it is spread by a fly, and that may very well have resulted to the spread of the flies range.

Inflation is up to 4.2%.

cont:

Reporter: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?

Trump: No, I love it. I love the inflation.

Johnson is already saying that's not what he meant.

June 14, 2026

Indeed, this would be horrible news:

Wyoming Outfitters, Hunters Say Screwworm Would Be Wildlife Disaster If It Hits State


And Carney continues to press for the new reality of American unreliability.

A global rupture’: Carney calls for Canada-EU unity before G7 summit

Canada’s prime minister has warned that the ‘rules-based’ global order is ‘breaking down’ amid superpower dominance.

June 19, 2026

Those of us in the livestock industry should pray for rain.  We also ought to realize that voting for climate change deniers like Harriet Hageman is basically putting a knife to the through our our children, and then cutting their arteries.

Wyoming Ranchers Pray For Rain As Drought, Demand Push Beef To Record High Prices

Drought?  Get real.  This isn't a normal drought.

June 22, 2026

Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill

A rare distributist bill.  It bans private equity acquisition of homes.

It will be challenged 

Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill

June 26, 2026

West Texas is at $69.53.

June 30, 2026

The 1.5-gigawatt Prometheus Hyperscale data center will now all be in Natrona County on the Falls Ranch property owned by Texas billionaire carpetbagger Russell Gordy.

Trump called the housing bill that passed both houses "a big yawn".  He's holding it hostage in hopes it makes congress pass the antidemocratic SAVE Act.

July 1, 2026

ABC reports that  President Trump has earned more than $1 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures while in office.

July 2, 2026

Grand Teton National Park employees unionize


July 9, 2026

Wyoming coal company wins federal money to extract critical minerals from Powder River Basin

July 14, 2026

Illegal tariffs being refunded pushed the June federal budget deficit up to $120 billion.

July 15, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Low US birth rate may create future housing glut

Also a headline in the CST:

Out of reach:  Research: More young Americans can’t afford to buy a starter home

In truth, the two headlines actually aren't contradictory.  An era of declining population will come, and that will cause a housing glut. And that's all a good thing.

July 20, 2026

The illegitimate demented fool occupying the White House as Congress is too cowardly to boot him out, is attempting to raise tariffs on Canada 50%.

Yet another dumb ass diversion

It'll fail in the courts.

July 22, 2026

Trump approved a 30 year deal with Saudi Arabia that will provide the it with a civilian nuclear program and potentially open the door to uranium enrichment in the kingdom.

The Saudi's likely want this as they know that oil is a finite resource, which we seemingly do not, and they know that global warming is not a fib, which the GOP does not.

What an irony, however. Nuclear deal with a theocratic Islamic state while we're at war with another nearby theocratic Islamic state for having a nuclear program.

And, an interesting examination of petroleum prices:


July 24, 2026

The Trump administration is imposing new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners, including the European Union, on the pretext of lax enforcement of forced labor bans.  

It comes right as the 10% tariffs expire and it'll be challenged in court, and fail.

It's really difficult to believe that an administration that won't release all the Epstein files, which involved a sort of child sexual labor, is concerned about forced labor.  This is absurd but fits into the Navarro economic model Der Fibber has bought into.

July 30, 2026

Coal and the Wyoming Congressional Delegation. They always have your back:

July 31, 2026

Growth fell in the second quarter, despite the AI business spending boom.

Cont:

The Trump administration announced it will end the Medicare Part D subsidy program in 2027.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.

Thursday, April 9, 2026