Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington DC. 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.

Monday, September 13, 1926. Bigots march in Washington.

15,000 member of of the Ku Klux Klan marched in Washington, D.C.


At one time this would truly seem like something relegated to history. But in the Trump era, large groups of the ignorant and bigots are features of national life once again.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 11, 1926. Assassination attempt on Mussolini.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 143rd Edition. The Chopper Edition.

And now it's a helipad

King Donald has spent a lot of his time this term of office remaking Washington D.C. itself.  He's already vandalized the Rose Garden, the East Wing, and the Reflecting Pool. Messing with buildings is something he is familiar with, and which he fancies himself good at, even though the evidence from D.C. is that he has the taste of a 19th Century bordello owner.

Now it's a helipad.  It'll be granite and on the White House grounds, and have the Presidential Seal on it.

The supposed reason is that the new Marine Corps 1 choppers are bigger, or more powerful, than their predecessors and therefore weren't working out well on the White House lawn.

The new helicopters are Sikorsky VH-92 Patriots. They are big.

Trump claims that Sikorsky will pay for the pads.  Lockheed Marine, which now owns Sikorsky, has more or less confirmed that.

I'll credit some of this story as credible.  These giant helicopters are really heavy, no doubt, and Washington D.C. is a swamp.  It may indeed have surpassed the dent in the lawn level.

Still, there's reason for concern.  Not one of Trump's major DC endeavors has worked out well. The East Wing desecration is way over the original price estimate and is likely to be torn down as soon as the illegitimate claimant to the office is out.  The Rhino Lining on the reflecting pool has been a disaster and has lead to a false criminal charge against an innocent former Olympian. Just on sheer experience, there should be concern that the price here will be off, the taxpayer will foot the bill (which maybe in this instance they should) and that it'll go badly.

Moreover, the helicopters maker footing the bill is disturbing, relationship wise.

Marine Corps 1 itself is one of those things that has turned the Presidency from being representative of the people into a type of king.  Eisenhower introduced it in 1957 as he wanted a quick way to get to his summer home in Pennsylvania.  There's no reason that the taxpayer should have been stuffed with that.  Now we've been stuck with a Presidential helicopter ever since.

Different countries, it might be noted, approach this differently.  Lots of countries do use government aircraft for chief executives, but some really restrain it.  Finland is one example.  It has aircraft for the chief executive, but if that person is traveling long distance, they do so commercially  A relatively recent Mexican president intentionally did that.

There's probably no way around this at this point, but frankly it is a bit much.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 142nd Edition, 25th Amendment Watch 21st Edition. The Vietnam Rag, Red Scare Editions.