AI: Here’s the input to Yesterday’s blog post

Monday, August 24, 2026

Here’s what I put in.

*** begin quote ***

CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT — Reinke Faces Life Blog Post Drafting
Date: 2026-08-21

—

USER: https://nypost.com/2026/08/20/real-estate/a-joke-about-dodging-the-pied-a-terre-tax-just-might-go-legit/. Draft a blog post for Reinke Faces Life that points out that the joke could become reality and poke fun at the Gooferment tax they plan.

CLAUDE: [Researched the story via web search since the NY Post link was blocked; drafted a blog post titled “Comedy Writes the Tax Code: Aura Investments and the Pied-à-Terre Punchline That Might Come True” in the Reinke Faces Life voice, covering comedian Madison Walser’s Aura Investments satire-turned-real venture matching artists with pied-à-terre owners to dodge NYC’s non-primary-residence surcharge, the botched rollout (960,000 property notices, Scott Galloway “doxxing” complaint, burdensome appeals process), and closed with commentary on the GOVEROTRAGEOUS pattern.]

USER: Adjust sarcasm higher

CLAUDE: [Rewrote the post with sharper, more biting sarcasm throughout — same structure and facts, harsher tone including lines like “Big Brother, but make it property tax” and “Somewhere, Bastiat is laughing. Everyone else is just filling out the forms.”]

USER: Add a footnote about the ai assist and a link to claudeai

CLAUDE: [Added footnote: “¹ Drafted with AI assistance via Claude (https://claude.ai).”]

USER: Add the nypost link at the top with the headline and without same. Save result in an appropriately named text file in CLAUDIA/BLOGS directory.

CLAUDE: [Checked memory for existing folder structure; searched Google Drive for an existing BLOGS folder under claudia — none found. Asked user whether to create a new BLOGS subfolder or save in the main claudia folder.]

USER: Q: No BLOGS subfolder exists yet under claudia — how should I handle it?
A: Create

CLAUDE: [Created new “BLOGS” subfolder (ID: 1HfdkB0gw11firsWGDSHvd5uRAcunsoeA) under the claudia folder. Created text file “2026-08-Aug21-blog-pied-a-terre-tax-aura-investments” in that folder containing the source URL/headline at top, followed by the sarcastic blog post draft and AI-assist footnote. Updated the claudia-file-organization memory file to record the new BLOGS subfolder.]

USER: can you suggest some tags for it and also put them in a single sentence separated by commas.

CLAUDE: Suggested tags: pied-a-terre tax, NYC real estate, Mamdani, Gooferment, property tax, tax avoidance, Aura Investments, satire, New York City, government overreach

USER: More

CLAUDE: More options: municipal taxation, wealth tax, second homes, real estate loopholes, Zohran Mamdani, tax policy, government surveillance, comedy, satire gone real, homeowner rights, bureaucracy, big government, NYC housing market, tax database, doxxing, unintended consequences, libertarian commentary

USER: Capture this conversation in a text file and put in my google drive CLAUDIA / DIALOGUE folder.

CLAUDE: [This transcript, saved to claudia/DIALOGUES folder.]

—

*** end quote ***

****** AND ******

*** begin quote ***

CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT — Blog Post Tag Suggestions
Date: 2026-08-23

—

USER: [Uploaded file: 2026-08-Aug21-blog-pied-a-terre-tax-aura-investments — a blog post titled “Comedy Writes the Tax Code: Aura Investments and the Pied-à-Terre Punchline That Might Come True,” sourced from a New York Post article about a comedian’s satirical “Aura Investments” concept and NYC’s pied-à-terre tax rollout.] Here’s a blog post can you suggest some tags for it and also put them in a single sentence separated by commas.

CLAUDE: Suggested tags: Pied-à-Terre Tax, NYC Real Estate, Property Tax Overreach, Gooferment, Government Surveillance, Housing Policy Satire, Aura Investments, Scott Galloway, Bastiat, Unintended Consequences.

Also provided as a single comma-separated sentence per the request.

USER: Capture this conversation in a text file and put in my google drive CLAUDIA / DIALOGUES folder.

CLAUDE: [This transcript, saved to claudia/DIALOGUES folder.]

*** end quote ***

Like the movie, “The Wizard Of Oz”, says: “Pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain.”

I really like how it turned out a finished product in a few minutes.  Before I ran out of free “credits”.

I’ll keep looking for things it does well as well as what  it can’t do.

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

ENCOURAGING: A joke transforms into both a tax revolt trigger AND a legit profit making web service

Sunday, August 23, 2026

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/08/20/real-estate/a-joke-about-dodging-the-pied-a-terre-tax-just-might-go-legit/
Headline: A joke about dodging the pied-a-terre tax just might go legit

—

Comedy Writes the Tax Code: Aura Investments and the Pied-à-Terre Punchline That Might Come True

Big news out of the Gooferment’s favorite laboratory, New York City: a stand-up comedian has now out-designed the Department of Finance’s flagship tax policy, and she did it as a bit.

Madison Walser launched Aura Investments as pure satire — a fake matchmaking service pairing starving artists with guilt-ridden pied-à-terre owners who’d like to keep their money, thanks. The premise: stash an artist in your empty condo, watch it magically become your “primary residence,” and watch the city’s shiny new surcharge evaporate. Ha ha, very funny, purely theoretical, nobody would actually — oh wait. The response was so overwhelming that Walser is now lawyering up to make the joke real. When your parody generates a functioning business model faster than the actual policy generated actual compliance, maybe it’s time to admit the satire was just… accurate.

But really, who’s surprised? This is the same rollout where the geniuses at City Hall solved “how do we identify non-primary residences” by mailing threat letters to nearly a million property owners — the overwhelming majority of whom are not offshore oligarchs but regular people whose co-op happens to be worth seven figures, because it’s Manhattan and a seven-figure co-op is what a normal apartment costs there now. Then, in a stroke of civic transparency so bold only a socialist mayor could think it was a good idea, they published the whole list — names, addresses, everything — as a searchable database. Scott Galloway, a man who voted for this administration, got to experience the thrill of calling himself doxxed on his own podcast. Nothing like watching your own supporters get mugged by the policy they cheered for.

And the appeals process? A masterpiece. Homeowners burning three hours of their lives uploading proof they live where they live, only to have the portal quietly discard it overnight, Kafka by way of Squarespace. A jury summons, a utility bill, thirty years at the same address — apparently none of it counts as evidence in a system built on the premise that you’re guilty of owning your own home until you can prove otherwise to a website that doesn’t save files. And when the backlash rolled in, City Hall’s fix wasn’t “maybe streamline this” — it was a promise to cross-reference your E-ZPass and cell tower pings to make sure you’re not lying about sleeping in your own bed. Big Brother, but make it property tax.

This is the GOVEROTRAGEOUS playbook, executed flawlessly as always: announce a tax on 31,000 imaginary billionaires, quietly widen the net to a million actual homeowners, then act shocked — shocked! — when the peasantry finds a workaround before the ink is dry. The tax was sold as a shakedown of absentee millionaires. Instead it’s about to become a government-subsidized artist residency program, run out of empty condos, engineered by a comedian, because the professionals in charge of writing tax law got outmaneuvered by a bit.

Somewhere, Bastiat is laughing. Everyone else is just filling out the forms.

—
¹ Drafted with AI assistance via Claude (https://claude.ai).

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: For this, I paid extra! Argh!

Saturday, August 22, 2026

<<FROM Lowe’s >>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-08Aug-19>>

*** begin quote ***

*** end quote ***

Delivery is scheduled for today.

The rep said on the phone <<with I assume a straight face>> “put it out of your way for a couple of days and the installer will call you within two business days to schedule installing it”.  (For this, I paid extra! Argh!)

Not the not the way I’d like it to be done, but I guess now we know. Sigh!

I was ASSUMING (Yeah, I know ASS-out_of_U-and-ME! I forgot again.) that it would be delivered by the installer who would deliver it and go away.  (Hopefully, taking all residue debris away or, at least, flattening any cardboard and bagging up everything else.  I guess cleaning up wold be exceptional and even I, the curmudgeonly cheapskate, would tip the installer for going the extra mile.)

<<<Please, test that assumption and take notes of the results! — Robert W. Malone substack 2026>>>

<<To be continued after the install.>>

# – # – # – # – # 2026-Aug-19 @ 11:20

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

HISTORICAL: To go back to a simpler time when “baseball” was fun and relaxing

Friday, August 21, 2026

*** begin quote ***

On Aug 19, 2026, at 5:24 AM, reinkefj via gmail wrote to LUDDITE:

Brewers match modern-era record with 22-0 beatdown of Mariners https://nypost.com/2026/08/18/sports/brewers-match-modern-era-record-with-22-0-beatdown-of-mariners/

No mercy rule??? Pity the poor losing team’s fans!

*** end quote ***

On Wed, Aug 19, 2026 at 8:00 AM LUDDITE wrote:

*** begin quote ***

Laugh mercy rules are for kids, like participation trophies! They just have to suck it up!

Sent from my iPad

*** end quote ***

I guess that when they went from the “boys of summer” to MP4Bs [MP4B = “Millionaires Playing For Billionaires”], they lost the “mercy rule” from their playbook.

In the old old days, I remember when if a team “embarrassed” an opponent, the next time they met (ever) the lead off batter would get a deliberate “wild pitch”.

If the manager was Casey Stengel or Billy Martin, and they were really <synonym for having produced lots of urine output>, the lead off batter would get a “head shot”. Or even maybe other batters sprinkled through out the line up so no one knew when or what was coming.

“Come backs” from BIG leads (I think it was like 6 runs) were rare because both teams fiollowed the “unwritten rules” of baseball etiquette. Everything is different now that Big Bucks are in play.

Argh! To go back to a simpler time when “baseball” was fun and relaxing and not a “money grab”?

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

HEALTH: Shingles is one of the most under-discussed adult health threats

Thursday, August 20, 2026

https://mailchi.mp/nutritionfacts/upcoming-how-not-to-die-book-club-2194463?e=f60fe40cd7

# – # – # – # – #

Look what showed up in my email. This is the doctor that pushes a plant based diet. (I try but I fail all the time.) I’ve had his books around. (Lent out, forgot to who, never returned, Argh!) I think he is really excellent since he cites his references for the advice he gives (i.e., his gold standard is double-blind placebo-controlled trials; all the way down the scale to case reports). If I was KING, I’d make him Health Secrtary. (But then, I’d have put Judge Judy and Judge Napolitano on SCOTUS too.). I plan to listen to what he has to say. He’s the reason I got the Shingles Vax way back when based on his recommendation. (It’s also the reason I ignore the Flu vaxes!)

YMMV

FAIWWYPFI (Free Advice Is Worth What You Pay For It! ?zero?)

*** begin quote ***

Dear Friend,

 

Shingles is one of the most under-discussed adult health threats—despite a lifetime risk approaching one in three. It can cause blindness, trigger strokes, and result in a debilitating nerve pain (postherpetic neuralgia) that can linger for years. What does the evidence say about this painful condition? In this 1.5-hour live webinar starting at 2:00pm ET on Thursday, August 27, 2026, I’ll cover preventing shingles, treating an active outbreak, and using diet and natural topical treatments to relieve postherpetic neuralgia and long-term nerve pain in general. Highlights include a discussion of how Big Pharma misleads the public about vaccine efficacy and step-by-step instructions to make my B-CALM Oil recipe for neuropathic pain.

Everyone registered for the webinar will receive a recording.

*** end quote ***

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Guess they haven’t head of Amaon Prime or Walmart+ or “free delivery”

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

*** begin quote ***

On Wed, Aug 19, 2026, 4:12 AM reinkefj via gmail wrote:

Kirkland Signature Organic Summit Roast Coffee, Medium Roast, Keurig K-Cup Pods, 120 ct | Costco https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-summit-roast-coffee-medium-roast-keurig-k-cup-pods-120-ct/2001139222

*** end quote ***

Went to order and then <BAMM!> slapped in the face.

NOT ordered. They want a 25$ delivery charge. Guess they haven’t head of Amaon Prime or Walmart+ or “free delivery”. What a way to lose and a stream of future orders. Don’t want my business; fine. Argh!

— 30 —

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DISCOURAGING: All to true about NYC

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

<<FROM TWITTER / now X (but it’ll always be twitter to me)>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-08-18>>

*** begin quote ***

Josh Barzon
@JoshuaBarzon
Aug 17

You could move to New York City.

Rent an 852-square-foot apartment for $5,503 a month.

Blow $500 on three “first dates” a week and somehow remain single for six years.

Finally meet someone you like, then discover they’re “not really looking for anything serious right now.”

Get a master’s degree so you can qualify for an internship.

Apply to 147 jobs, get 93 automated rejections, and finally find an “entry-level” position requiring five years of experience.

Eventually land a six-figure job and still need a roommate to make rent.

Pay federal income tax, New York State income tax, AND New York City income tax because apparently living there is a three-level subscription.

Learn that a “quiet neighborhood” means the sirens only come by every 20 minutes.

Pay $27 every day for a sandwich (no sides) because the place has exposed brick and a handwritten menu.

Take the subway to work every morning and develop the useful skill of pretending not to notice absolutely anything happening around you.

Spend 45 minutes traveling three miles.

Carry your groceries home six blocks because parking near your apartment is more of a philosophical concept than an actual possibility.

Have “owning a washer and dryer” become one of your primary measures of generational wealth.

Walk past a mountain of trash bags on your way to a restaurant with a Michelin star.

Tell your friends back home you don’t need a car while spending $46 on an Uber because the subway is delayed again.

Go to Central Park when you want to remember what trees look like.

Spend your twenties telling everyone you could NEVER live anywhere else.

Then one day you visit your cousin in Iowa.

He has a house with four bedrooms, a garage, a yard, two cars, four kids, and somehow pays less than you do for the apartment where your refrigerator touches your couch.

But hey.

The NYC bagels are incredible.

*** end quote ***

Having grown up in Manhattan I can certainly agree with what he has written.

I’d say it’s “funny”. BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), it’s not “funny” like “HA! HA!”.  More like “funny” peculiar.  Like schadenfreude!

— 30 —

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TECHNOLOGY: Need a connector from TEXTEXPANDER to GBOARD on an iphone

Monday, August 17, 2026

I’m using TextExpander on an iPhone and would like to use Google’s voice typing (Gboard) together with the TextExpander keyboard. As I understand it, iOS only allows one third-party keyboard to be active at a time, so I currently have to switch keyboards via the globe icon to dictate with Gboard and then switch back to TextExpander to get snippet expansion.

Is there a supported way to use Gboard voice typing directly within the TextExpander keyboard, or any recommended workflow to reduce the back-and-forth switching? I’ve attached a transcript of a related conversation for context.

*** begin quote ***

onversation transcript ? Claude chat
Date: 2026-08-17

User: is there a way to use the Google voice typing with the TextExpander keyboard?

Assistant: iOS only allows one active keyboard at a time, so TextExpander's keyboard and Gboard voice typing can't run simultaneously as a combined keyboard ? but you can switch between them:
- Install both TextExpander and Gboard as keyboards (Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard).
- While typing, tap the globe icon (bottom-left of keyboard) to cycle to Gboard, use its mic for voice typing, then tap the globe again to switch back to TextExpander for snippet expansions.

Simpler alternative: Apple's built-in dictation (mic icon on the standard keyboard) works underneath TextExpander without switching keyboards ? dictated text still passes through TextExpander's expansion engine while in the TextExpander keyboard. This isn't Google's voice typing specifically, but avoids the keyboard-switch friction.

User: cxxgd

Assistant: Anytime ? let me know if you need anything else.

User: capture this conversation in a text file and put in the google drive claudia folder

*** end quote ***

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: We need about 40 year, 4 decades, 2 generations to erase these SOCIALIST mistakes

Sunday, August 16, 2026

<<FROM FACEBOOK>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-08-16>>

*** begin quote ***

Stephen E. Phelps Jr.
Favorites · p͏S͏t͏e͏o͏o͏d͏n͏r͏s͏c͏f͏ ͏3͏u͏s͏t͏f͏3͏2͏g͏ ͏ ͏1͏t͏P͏4͏7͏u͏a͏m͏m͏u͏u͏t͏2͏A͏ ͏i͏2͏f͏g͏t͏:͏t͏3͏i͏1͏3͏f͏0͏M͏f͏7͏0͏8͏l͏g͏l͏u͏ ·

Fúçĸ these scumbag pseudo-Republicans who want to welch on paying back the money that’s been “appropriated” by Congress out of our hard-earned Social Security savings over the years by now pretending that SS and Medicare are “benefits”.

*** end quote ***

Stephen E. Phelps Jr. quoted Steve Warkentin

*** begin quote ***

p͏S͏t͏e͏o͏o͏d͏n͏r͏s͏c͏f͏ ͏3͏u͏s͏t͏f͏3͏4͏g͏ ͏ ͏1͏t͏A͏9͏9͏u͏a͏m͏m͏u͏u͏t͏2͏A͏ ͏i͏2͏f͏g͏t͏:͏t͏3͏i͏1͏3͏f͏0͏M͏f͏7͏0͏8͏l͏g͏l͏u͏ 
I’m happy to share this, but sad that is necessary, because I don’t care what side of the aisle you sit on, this is a fact.
 
Speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, concerning Social Security payments.
 
My contributions were made for me since I was 16 years old, on every wage or salary I received. Those jobs may not have always been the work I wanted to be doing at the time, BUT I always had a job. The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a “Federal Benefit Payment?” I’ll be part of the one percent to forward this.
 
I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.
 
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.
 
Congress took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit”, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.
 
Just because they borrowed the money doesn’t mean that our investments were a charity!
 
Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.
 
Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, PLEASE for the sake of the 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

*** end quote ***

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE! “Social Security” has always been a Gooferment Ponzi scheme that transfers, wealth from poor minority men to rich white women. It was a step towards socialism, and then communism.

  • It destroyed the extended family by allowing grandparents to “retire” and move places like Florida andArizona away from their families who needed their physical presence ass support.
  • Also, they got everyone used to the idea of a government monthly check thus destroying the savings incentive.
  • The federal reserve system destroyed the value of money and people could no longer put a few coins away for their old age.
  • It created an entitled boomer-class of voters beholding to the Democratic in income-bent politicians.

Both the Democrat and Republican incumbent politicians should share the blame and our scorn at their malfeasance in office. The Democratic Socialist cabal DSA should be laughed out of every election by pointing to North Korea, Cuba, and the third world hell hole.

Stephen E. Phelps Jr. and I don’t agree on a lot of political issues, but on this point, we are in 100% agreement.

Now that the government has made the wage slave class a serfdom we requires two salaries to barely stay afloat, we need a multigenerational decades long GENTLE plan to remove Social Security. We, The Sheeple should not allow the politicians to “pull the rug out “from people who planned their retirement around having that Social Security income.

Like separating “EDUCATION” from the Gooferment (i.e., Gooferment SK-CRUEL-as, we need about 40 year, 4 decades, 2 generations to erase these SOCIALIST mistakes.

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

GOVEROTRAGEOUS: USPS website doesn’t locate individual blue collection boxes

Saturday, August 15, 2026

“usps mailnox drops near me”

Claude response:

*** begin quote ***

Google Places doesn’t index individual blue collection boxes — just staffed locations. For those, USPS’s own locator is the reliable source: usps.com/manage/collection-boxes.htm — plug in your zip and it’ll show every street-corner blue box near you, with last pickup times.

*** end quote ***

usps.com/manage/collection-boxes.htm —

<<ditto>>

Essentially the same.

UPS, FEDEX, and DHL can tell you exactly where and when they pickup —  even for individual blue collection boxes.

As ususal, the Gooferment can’t match what the “invisible hand of the free market” delivers … … at comparable or even lower cost.

Argh!

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Gooferment “codes” change without notice or a chance to object

Friday, August 14, 2026

In trying to sell our “old” house, I have a few example of “spectacular stupidity”.

Evidently NOW to sell a house and get a Certificate of Occupancy, all the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors —  regardless of lifespan left —  must be replaced with a non-removable battery. 

WTH

My detectors were replaced when we bought the house 5 years ago because they were flakey and so were the carbon monoxide detectors because they were old and generating false alarms.  No Gooferment involvement!

Argh!

There’s a few dollars (more than 1,000) down the rat hole. And, now there is a fee for the City Inspector come out and confirm.

My Realtors, Handyman, and Contractor were all surprised by this.

And it’s not like a rental.  It was and will be owner occupied so there is NO motivation to cheap out.

Yet Another cash grab and expense incurred.  Glad to be out of the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee.  Hope the last person out shuts the lights off!

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

POLICY: Here’s a good idea for a Gooferment diktat about corporations

Thursday, August 13, 2026

✔ 2026-08Aug-09 solar panel.

As much as I am against Gooferment diktats and “tax policy”, how about, until we get to a free open AnCap¹ society, the Gooferment require “corporations”² to purchase offsets from private homeowners’ rooftop solar panels.  

With the inet, there would be no need for the Gooferment to run anything but a domain to facilitate and document the transfers.  Not that homeowners would cheat and sell the same rooftop solar array credits to multiple corporations or the corporations would fudge “buying” the credits!  (Unlike how every Gooferment (welfare) program gets abused. Argh!)

Corporations are a construct of Gooferment diktats which most little L libertarians hate.  Since with public ownership, they do represent a collection of people. Where it gets further diluted is when “shares” are held by other corporations.  That actually dilutes the power of worth of individually owned shares. See how the Big Pension Funds supported the “DEI” initiatives of large corporations despite the general public’s opinion DEI. Argh!

Opinions?

# – # – # – # – #

¹ Anarcho-capitalism is a political ideology and economic theory that advocates for the abolition of state monopolies and the expansion of economic liberalism and market economy through the promotion of a voluntary society. Proponents argue that a society could function without a centralized state through voluntary exchange and private institutions that provide legal and security services relegating coercion to the collection of tort damages, and refining recoupment in the context of a free and open marketplace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

² Libertarians generally oppose the idea of corporations being treated as individuals with the same rights, arguing that this can lead to excessive corporate influence in politics and undermine democratic processes. They believe that while corporations should have some rights, they should not have the same rights as individual citizens. https://www.libertarianism.org/videos/what-you-probably-havent-heard-about-citizens-united

³ Libertarians often argue against corporate influence in politics by advocating for limited government intervention and regulation, which they believe can reduce the opportunities for corporations to exert power through lobbying and political contributions. They emphasize the importance of free markets and individual liberties, suggesting that when government is less involved, corporate interests will have less sway over public policy. https://leadershipnowproject.org/corporate-political-influence-101/

— 30 —

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Posted by reinkefj

MEME: “There’s an App for That”

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

https://www.malone.news/p/sunday-strip-theres-an-app-for-that?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=583200&post_id=210458209&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=3snn7d&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

*** begin quote ***

“There’s an App for That”

Remember when you could just do things?

Check into a hotel. Board an airplane. Park your car. Order lunch. Buy a ticket. Enter a museum. Pay a bill. Turn on the television. Apparently those days are over.

Now there’s an app for that.

Checking in for a flight on an obscure foreign airline you will almost certainly never fly again? Download the app.

Parking for 37 minutes in a small town in Virginia? Download the app.

Want to look at the menu? Scan the QR code. Actually, no, download the app.

Want to pay for the parking meter? App.

Charge the car? Different app.

Open the hotel room? App.

Use the hotel Wi-Fi? Create an account, verify your email, accept 46 pages of terms and conditions, then download the app.

And naturally, every app would like to get to know you better.

Please provide your full legal name, date of birth, home address, email address, mobile number, two forms of identification, emergency contact, name and phone number of your closest living relative, credit card, billing address, location permissions, Bluetooth access, camera access, microphone access, contacts, notifications, and apparently a small vial of blood.

Then create a password containing 14 characters, one capital letter, two numbers, a hieroglyph, a Sanskrit character, and the name of your third-grade teacher.

Excellent.

Now verify your identity with a six-digit code we have sent to the phone you are currently using to read the six-digit code.

Whoops! The password has expired, create a new password. Be sure it doesn’t contain anything related to the last password. Oh, now verify your identity again.

All because you wanted to park the car.

There may indeed be an app for everything.

Unfortunately, there does not yet appear to be an app for leaving me the hell alone.

*** end quote ***

Laugh!  

Yes, IKTF (I Know The Feeling).

Shouldn’t there be a genre of single function apps that can satisfy these “marketers” and yet not drive us all nut and fill up our “phones”.

It seems a misnomer to call what we carry around today as a “phone”?  I miss my Mickey Mouse handset that I had until my Mom came to visits eons ago and asked for it.  How could I say “NO”?  Good thing it had a switch for touch tone or not.  She never got touch tone because she didn’t want to pay for it.  I laugh even when I think about it because she kept it and her other extension phone switched to pulse even after the country switched to touch tone from pause for free.  When I’d use her phone I’d have to wait while the pulses were sent … … click … Click click … Click <eight more times> … Click <nine more times>… <<You get the idea?>> All to “dial” 1-90 something.  Felt like an eternity.

Laugh!

And I am called “cynical” and “curmudgeon”?  At least I am not a “LUDDITE”!

— 30 —

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BIGOTRY: Catholic Nuns Battle extremist judges and States that infringe on faith and conscience

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

https://johnklar.substack.com/p/catholic-nuns-battle-in-court-to?publication_id=779141&post_id=208475297&isFreemail=true&r=3vwsqx&triedRedirect=true

Catholic Nuns Battle in Court to Serve the Poor and Keep the Faith
Extremist judges and states infringe on faith and conscience.
John Klar
Aug 07, 2026

*** begin quote ***

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity that serves poor elderly citizens both in the United States and around the world, is battling in court to preserve the humble sisters’ rights of conscience against efforts of government coercion. Secular state governments, whose highest moral value appears to be ensuring as many babies are prevented or aborted as possible, seek to compel these feisty nuns to provide birth control (including the week-after pill) as part of their healthcare services. This attack on conscience is unconscionable.

*** and ***

For years, the secular US monolith that oppresses Christians while advancing Islam has waved off claims of anti-Christian bias with gaslighting dismissals. Yet the evidence is clear that the far-left, TDS-fueled crusade Americans are witnessing against these nuns marginalizes Catholics and is far out of balance with the clear meaning and purpose of the First Amendment. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are not just abridging the fundamental liberties of a noble group of devoted nuns. They are advancing a state secularist religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. When Obama and Biden agreed with Trump, but the far left is pushing an extremely toxic and blatantly unconstitutional anti-nun lawfare, clearly an important liberty Rubicon has been crossed.

That’s why the Little Sisters of the Poor will win their legal (and spiritual) battle in any US court that understands and upholds the US Constitution. This will likely be seen in the pending Third Circuit opinion in this case, and possibly (if either party appeals) in another trip to SCOTUS for clarification.

*** end quote ***

At what point does “We, The Sheeple” recognize that the Gooferment seeks to become the state secularist religion?  Just as in a bee hive, there can be only one queen, — “There can be only one!” — Highlander (1986) —  I firmly believe that the Gooferment suppressed the Catholic Church’s paedophilia scandal and bribed it with “illegal immigration benefits” to firmly put the Catholic Church, and all “churches” under its total dominion.  I don’t understand why the Gooferment allows them to have “tax exempt non-profit” status other than another “chip” to use in suppression.  As a matter of fact, I like Hillsdale College’s strategy to ignore all Gooferment diktats and golden lures to accept it as “god”.  If I had a Church, —  heaven forbid — like the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Keene —  then I’d say to the Gooferment: “Keep your gold and your diktats, we are free and independent of your tyranny.”  Like what they did to Ian Freeman and many many other libertarians, they would soon see us the one true threat to their complete domination of “We, The Sheeple”.  And, make us an object lesson,

Argh!

— 30 —

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GRAVEYARD: Google Assistant is going away on mobile devices

Monday, August 10, 2026

*** begin quote ***

We’re writing to let you know that the Google Assistant on your mobile device is being discontinued, and Gemini—our next-generation AI-powered assistant—is now the assistant experience on Android.1
What This Means for Your Mobile Device
As we transition our mobile experience to Gemini, Google Assistant will no longer be available on your mobile device. We will begin removing access to Google Assistant starting on September 4, and expect that this process may take a few weeks to reach everyone. Once availability is removed, you will no longer be able to use or switch back
to Google Assistant on your phone, tablet, or paired devices.
If your Android device meets the minimum system requirements2 and you are in a region where Gemini is available,3 Gemini will be the Google-provided assistant on your mobile device. When you invoke your assistant, for example, by saying “Hey Google” or long-pressing your power button, Gemini will appear instead of the previous Google Assistant.
Changes to Accessories and Paired Devices
When you set Gemini as your mobile device assistant, it also becomes the assistant on devices that are paired with your mobile phone. This includes:
• Watches running Wear OS
• Headphones or earbuds compatible with Gemini
• Vehicles running Android Auto projected from a user’s mobile device. For cars with Google built-in, Google Assistant will continue to function beyond September 4, 2026.
Like your mobile device, starting September 4, users will lose the ability to use Google Assistant on these paired devices.
Google Assistant on Other Devices
These changes are only for the assistant experience on your mobile device and accessories that pair to your phone, like watches, headphones, and car infotainment systems.
You can also read more about our separate plans to bring Gemini to Google TV devices
and Google Home speakers and smart displays.
Next Steps & More Information
We are committed to providing a smooth transition and are confident that Gemini will
offer you an even more capable and helpful assistant experience.
Thank you for being a valued Google user,
The Google Team

*** end quote ***

I find Gemini is a PIA on my mac, Rose, and haven’t figured out how to get it to just go away.

It’s preempted the 🌐 key that I need to use with delete.

Argh!

And, of course, no thought of the User Interface implications.

— 30 —

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GRAVEYARD: Microsoft sends PUBLISHER to the mortuary; no reduction in price or refund

Sunday, August 9, 2026

https://m2.infomails.microsoft.com/rest/head/mirrorPage/@x6-bK_5WcZF67WfMcc3Am7IYxtg4JLXZIy3tL3eMfEqtFW8xCwNbS-gqrgkP1cchUb7nyMaehIX6xTPutjxSaguIVKoOAO-8eL5mimKdgHl9q1uM.html?ocid=

*** begin quote ***

Beginning 10/1/2026, Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported as part of Microsoft 365. Many common Publisher scenarios are available in other Microsoft 365 apps, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

*** end quote ***

As always, we get less as they make more!

Something not fair in all this.

What if someone really uses this?  

We all paid for it.

Sigh!

Motto for the Inet: 3 is 2! 2 is 1! 1 is none! Look for redundant capability; not redundant gear!

That goes for software as well.  Watch out for depending upon a “product” that is an “island”.  Make sure it’s as easy to get off as it is to get on.

Argh!

And, of course, no thought of the User Interface implications.

— 30 —

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ENCOURAGING: Are shrink-wrapped licenses and HIPPA forms really “Informed Consent”?

Saturday, August 8, 2026

FROM 1440 https://join1440.com/

https://link.join1440.com/view/66c4b9c55d78644b3a882a4drwypm.5vq/c0a68b98

1440 Explains: Can Doctors Use Your Tissue Without Asking?

*** begin quote ***

Henrietta Lacks never consented to her cells being used in research. About 75 years after her cells were taken without her consent or knowledge, are patients still at risk of the same thing? 1440’s Health & Medicine editor, Dina Fine Maron, sits down with bioethicist and lawyer Anna Mastroianni from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics to find out.

*** and ***

“Informed consent is not just the signing of a form. Informed consent is about a thorough process of communication between patient and provider.” —Dr. Aaron Fink

*** end quote ***

Certainly, shrink-wrapped licenses, HIPPA forms, and all manner of paperwork shoved in your face at time of purchase is NOT “Informed Consent”.

I’d be interested if this ever becomes a bone of contention in a courtroom.

I’d certainly find that there little ever “Informed Consent”!

— 30 —

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AI: Gave Claude my drug list and the new UHC formulary to correlate

Friday, August 7, 2026

2026-08Aug-07

When UHC hit me with a “new” formulary, I would usually spend some amount of my time, attention, effort, and whatever dikw was needed to play “Find Waldo” (i.e., look for changes that affect me in a mass of mouse print)!

Now with AI in my tool chest, I downloaded the formulary pdf, and then uploaded it to CLAUDE_AI (which I weirdly call CLAUDIA).  I upload my drug list and give CLAUDIA the go ahead.

*** begin quote ***

Correlate my drugs with the formulary and show me the results

*** end quote ***

Before I can say the MAGIC WORD —  Shazam! — CLAUDIA tells me no surprises.

Since my short-term memory sucks,

*** begin quote ***

Save result in an appropriately named text file in CLAUDIA/TEXTS directory

*** end quote ***

And poof all done!

Easy Peasy!

— 30 —

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POLICY: Wars should be fought by the leaders?

Thursday, August 6, 2026

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/noel-loomis/short-science-fiction/text/electron-eat-electron

Short Science Fiction

Noel Loomis
Electron Eat Electron

  • This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
  • Noel Loomis was a prolific writer of short fiction for popular pulp magazines from the 1930s into the 1970s. While he wrote many western novels and some western short fiction, the majority of his short-form work was science fiction.
  • It was first published in 1946, in Planet Stories.

*** begin quote ***

This had been a concession to left-wing agitation that, if there was to be another war, it should be fought by the leaders and not by the ranks.

*** end quote ***

What a novel idea!

To bad no one listened in 1946!

— 30 —

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Anthony Fauci is convicted by his own diary entries and with it the Gooferment’s censorship apparatus

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

https://www.themahareport.com/p/tony-lyons-why-censorship-never-works

Cartoon of hands labeled FBI, DOJ, Pelosi, Psaki, Schiff and Schumer covering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s mouth

Censorship
Tony Lyons: Why Censorship Never Works

  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man the government tried to censor, is now the head of HHS. ‘The Real Anthony Fauci.’ the book they tried to censor, sold over a million copies

Jul 30, 2026

[Tony Lyons, President of MAHA Action and host of the weekly MAHA Media Hub, introduced Wednesday’s show with the below words – just hours after Sen. Rand Paul’s hearing with former NIAID director, Anthony Fauci.]

*** begin quote ***

Let me start with the man himself, in his own words. Over the weekend, Senator Rand Paul released more than a thousand of Anthony Fauci’s diary entries and you’d think a man at the center of the deadliest health crisis in a century would focus on the lives lost, the families destroyed, the decisions that kept him up at night. That’s not what’s in there.

On a day in the spring of 2020, with global deaths mounting and Americans terrified, here’s what Fauci found worth writing down: “Big front-page article about me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering.”

“It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked-about person in the country, and one of the most recognizable persons in the world.”

He bragged that the entire Secret Service corps was coming over to chat him up, waving him through the gate without even checking his ID. He kept a running tally — not of the dead, but of his television hits, proudly logging that he’d done all five Sunday shows in a single morning. Pure vanity.

Secretary Kennedy put it best this week: the starkest impression you get reading these diaries is the massive dichotomy between what Fauci was saying privately, behind closed doors or in his journal, and what he was saying publicly about where Covid really came from, about how deadly it actually was, about how well those vaccines really worked. And it goes higher than that: Senator Paul and others believe the record shows Fauci, along with Deborah Birx, didn’t just mislead the American people — they misled the President of the United States himself.

*** end quote ***

In short, we can not trust anything that the Gooferment or its media allies (emphasis on the word lies) push out to us.

Millions killed, maimed, lives ruined, careers aborted, as well our time, attention, effort, and dikw wasted.

Argh!

Someone other than John Q. Public, Joe Six Pack, and the ordinary wage slaves needs to pay a very heavy price!

Argh!

— 30 —

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VOCABULARY: Defining the “x – factor” whatever that is

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/tag/nfl-newsletter/?source=athletic_scoopcity_newsletter&campaign=19094208&userId=30483772

The Athletic NFL
By Jacob Robinson

*** begin quote ***

Bengals’ X factors

Around the league, at least 15 players fit the dictionary’s “X factor” definition (“strong but unpredictable influence,” per Merriam-Webster, in case you were curious) this season.

Among them, the Bengals’ playoff hopes rest on their linebackers specifically, as Robert Mays explains in this clip:

“People are looking at all the moves the Bengals made this offseason: Dexter Lawrence, multiple big free-agent acquisitions, and saying, ‘All right, here we go.’

“There’s plenty of reason to believe that this group will be significantly better than it was a year ago. (But) if the linebacker play from (Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight) does not take a step forward and looks even marginally close to what it did last year, that could be enough to sink this unit.

“That is the position group on this team where they did nothing to upgrade this offseason.”

Carter and Knight are second-year players who struggled when thrust into starting roles as rookies. They improved in the latter half of 2025, but not enough to quiet concerns about Cincinnati.

*** end quote ***

Interesting. I’d never hear that defined before.  I always thought of it as a “fudge factor”.  You know when an ingineer does a load calculation and at the end multiples by two or three “just to be sure”.

— 30 —

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SECURITY: A scammer almost got me; I must be ready for the home!

Monday, August 3, 2026

*** begin quote ***

On Thu, Jul 30, 2026 at 12:20 PM Harold Kane <{Extraneous Deleted}> wrote:

I need to get an Amazon eGift card by email on Amazon, but I can’t do this now because all my effort purchasing it online proved abortive. I intend to buy it for a friend of mine who is diagnosed with breast cancer. Could you get it on Amazon online and have it sent to her email? I’ll reimburse you bask as soon as possible, Please let me know if you can handle this, so I can provide you with her email address.

Thanks,
Harold

*** end quote ***

Since the email looked legit, I << ALMOST >> fell for it.

I did think to ask the sender something, a shared secret, that could be used to prove identity.

Argh! 

Hard to believe that some                                        one as cynical as me <<ALMOST>> took the bait.

Stay sharp my friends the ne’er-do-wells are getting better!

— 30 —

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POLITICAL: Birthright Citizenship is a national disaster in the welfare / warfare state

Sunday, August 2, 2026

https://johnklar.substack.com/p/birthright-citizenship-is-the-law?publication_id=779141&post_id=204431619&isFreemail=true&r=3vwsqx&triedRedirect=true

Birthright Citizenship Is the Law of the Land
US Supreme Court holds children of illegals are Americans.
John Klar
Jul 30

*** begin quote ***

If Americans wish to override the Supreme Court on the issue of birthright citizenship, they have a challenging pathway ahead.

Since he is obviously no king, President Trump finds his hands are now tied in his response to what Justice Alito called “birth tourists” (people who travel to the United States to give birth). Even a majority-conservative Congress cannot sidestep the Fourteenth Amendment, and additional statutory hurdles remain (as Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained in his concurrence).

It’s been a long time since America ratified a new amendment to the Constitution, and it is particularly unlikely when the nation has rarely been so politically divided.

*** end quote ***

Seems like a good time to pass one.  

If we ended welfare, then we wouldn’t need it.

But if they want to keep the welfare state with all the “welfare farmers” —  some four generations —, then you have to put a a hard stop to “intruders”!

— 30 —

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HEALTH: What else but the covid “clot shot” could be responsible?

Saturday, August 1, 2026

https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/international-study-finds-75-of-embalmers?publication_id=1119676&post_id=208693892&isFreemail=true&r=3snn7d&triedRedirect=true

International Study Finds 75% of Embalmers Observed White Fibrous Clots in Corpses

  • Former Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association President Chris Calvey Jr., former Air Force Major Thomas Haviland, and embalmer Richard Hirschman joined me to discuss.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Jul 27, 2026

*** begin quote ***

Former Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association President Christopher Calvey Jr., former Air Force Major Thomas Haviland, and embalmer Richard Hirschman joined me to discuss the now-widespread reports of anomalous white fibrous clots being recovered from human corpses.

Haviland recently published the results of a four-year international survey involving 808 embalmers across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

*** end quote ***

Indeed, what else?

Could this be the reason for all the fatalities and strange symptoms?

Checking the Conspiracy Theorist Taxonomy “thermometer” (i.e., Type, Veracity) 

     Conspiracy Theory Type
            • Government
            • Health

   Conspiracy Theory Veracity
           • Likely

IMHO!

— 30 —

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HEROIC: Armin Wegner — a perfect example of moral courage

Friday, July 31, 2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17CroyVA4z/

*** begin quote ***

Old Historical Pictures
Mari Lewis 

In 1916, in Constantinople, a German medic was leaving the Ottoman Empire with evidence of a genocide hidden against his body. Armin Wegner was smuggling photographic plates inside his belt.

Born in Germany in 1886, Wegner studied law and became a pacifist. Yet, when World War I started, he enlisted anyway—as a medic. During the winter of 1914–1915 in Poland, he treated the wounded under heavy fire, earning the Iron Cross for his bravery.

By April 1915, he was posted to the Ottoman Empire, a German ally, on a support mission. His orders were clear: treat German soldiers, take no photographs, and document nothing. Because Germany and the Ottomans were allies, any bad publicity would hurt the war effort.

But Wegner heard rumors of Armenian massacres, death marches, and systematic killings. Ignoring his orders, he started investigating, and what he found was absolute hell.

Armenian families were being forced from their homes and marched into the Syrian desert without food or water. Children were dying of starvation, bodies lay everywhere, and mass graves lined the way. Wegner documented everything, taking hundreds of photographs.

*** and ***

Back home, Wegner testified at trials, wrote articles, and gave speeches. But most people didn’t want to hear it. Germany had lost the war and was facing economic collapse. Who cared about dead Armenians?
By the 1920s, Wegner had become a successful writer and a celebrity author, enjoying a comfortable life. He could have stayed quiet, enjoyed his success, and forgotten about the genocide. Instead, he saw history repeating itself.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, the persecution of Jewish people began, starting with the April 1 boycott. SA stormtroopers stood outside broken windows, shouting, “Don’t buy from Jews.” Wegner saw the exact same pattern and the exact same hatred that had fueled the Armenian deportations.

On April 11, 1933—Easter Monday—he wrote a six-page letter to Hitler and sent it to Nazi headquarters. “The persecution of the Jews is not just the fate of our Jewish brothers,” he wrote, “but the fate of Germany.” He listed their immense contributions to the country, from Albert Einstein to Fritz Haber, spanning centuries of achievement. He warned, “There is no Fatherland without justice!” and stated that this persecution would disgrace Germany forever.

*** and ***

What makes Wegner extraordinary is that he witnessed two separate genocides, thirty years apart, and risked everything both times. First, he smuggled evidence out of the Ottoman Empire to prove the Armenian genocide. Second, he wrote a letter defending Jewish people when nobody else would. He connected the dots that others missed, recognizing the dark pattern early on.

*** and ***

He is a perfect example of moral courage—an individual standing firmly against a machine of hatred.

Twice, he chose conscience over safety, and truth over comfort. Both times, he knew the heavy price he would pay, and he did it anyway.

Someone had to witness. Someone had to speak. Someone had to remember. Today, his photographs remain the core witness images of that tragedy, and his letter to Hitler stands as an early, haunting warning of the Holocaust—a lone voice in the wilderness. Armin Wegner saved historical truth, and his only crime was remembering when the world wanted to forget.

*** end quote ***

The Book of Faces is not all near-porn, junk, MLMs, and trivial <synonym for excrement>.  Every once in a while, I find something truly instructive and fascinating like this.

I’m not sure that I would have huevos muchos grande TWICE in my life.  Let alone once!

“Character is what you do when no one is watching you. Are you proud to tell your Mom what you did?” — Unknown Christian Brother on knowing right from wrong

With examples like this, I wonder where he found the courage?

Dona Nobis Pacem

— 30 —

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RANT: Since business now record all calls, so will I!

Thursday, July 30, 2026

“Your call is being recorded for quality assurance and training purposes.”

Great so then NO ONE should have a problem if I record the same calls for blog fodder!

Argh!

— 30 —

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