AI: Hard not to read this article and NOT be concerned.

Friday, September 4, 2026

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/01/wake-up-call-for-congress-lawmakers-get-a-big-brother-warning-on-ai-01054087

Own a gun? Go to church? Do yoga? AI can find out in seconds.

  • A series of demos on the Hill has both Democrats and Republicans alarmed about artificial intelligence’s ability to plumb commercial databases for information on Americans.

By Alfred Ng

09/01/2026 04:45 AM EDT

*** begin quote ***

Republicans and Democrats across Capitol Hill are getting a glimpse of artificial intelligence’s latest power: its ability to churn out instant dossiers filled with details about ordinary Americans, from a gun store owner’s leaked email passwords to a church member’s yoga workouts to people’s visits to abortion clinics.

*** end quote ***

Hard not to read this article and NOT be concerned.  

With all the Karens and other crazies out there that seem to think killing people is “socially acceptable”, everyone needs to be concerned.

Hell, I won’t even react to “driving bullies” on the road.  Who knows what will be the result?

Argh!

p.s., while POLITICO is a left-leaning progressive site, in this case, I think they have done a great job “nailing this to the politician’s office door”.  Well done!

“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” — Robert A. Heinlein

Important to keep an open mind and open ears even to those who you assume are just always “wrong”.

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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.

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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!

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AI: CLAUDE and TEXTEXPANDER don’t seem to work well together

Sunday, July 19, 2026

*** begin quote ***

TextExpander note:
– TextExpander works in the Claude app/claude.ai input, since it operates at the OS/keyboard level.

Test message logged (2026-06Jun-14 0248):
“Test Book of Faces. 2026-06Jun-14 0248 idk IDK IDIDK GEIW FEIE FWIW fwiw Mother NatureSOME DONT WORK” – appears to be a TextExpander snippet test where some abbreviations did not expand.

*** end quote ***

Time to be an “unpaid ALPHA tester” for the nice folks at TEXTEXPANDER

— 30 —

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AI: CLAUDE doesn’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places

Saturday, July 18, 2026

*** begin quote ***

User: Print it

Claude explained it does not have the ability to send documents to a physical
printer, and suggested the user open the file from Google Drive or download it
to print locally.

*** end quote ***

Well that’s annoying.

— 30 —

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AI: CLAUDE doesn’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places

Friday, July 17, 2026

*** begin quote ***

Dialogue – June 28, 2026

USER: Delete all New Jersey saved places in Google Maps

CLAUDE: I don’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places — there’s no Google Maps connector available to me.

To delete saved places in Google Maps yourself:

1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile icon
2. Go to Saved → Your lists
3. Open each list, find NJ places, tap the three dots on each, and select “Remove from list”

Or on desktop at maps.google.com, go to Saved in the left menu and manage from there. Unfortunately there’s no bulk-delete option in Google Maps — it has to be done one by one.

USER: Create text file and save in Google Drive Claudia folder

CLAUDE: What would you like the text file to contain?

USER: The previous dialogue

*** end quote ***

Sure AI and machines are going to take over the world?

Argh!

— 30 —

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AI: What ClaudaAI (Claudia) can’t do — access Google Maps or saved places

Friday, June 26, 2026

*** begin quote ***

Dialogue – June 28, 2026

USER: Delete all New Jersey saved places in Google Maps

CLAUDE: I don’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places — there’s no Google Maps connector available to me.

To delete saved places in Google Maps yourself:

1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile icon
2. Go to Saved → Your lists
3. Open each list, find NJ places, tap the three dots on each, and select “Remove from list”

Or on desktop at maps.google.com, go to Saved in the left menu and manage from there. Unfortunately there’s no bulk-delete option in Google Maps — it has to be done one by one.

*** end quote ***

Argh!

— 30 —

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AI: A conversation with CLAUDE IA that I call CLAUDIA

Friday, June 12, 2026

My input:

How can I “write” a note on the back of a digital JPEG photo like I sometimes did on a real photo print?

CLAUDIA:

CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT
Generated: 2026-06-12
================================================================================

USER: new topic

CLAUDE: Ready when you are — what’s on your mind?

——————————————————————————–

USER: How can I “write” a note on the back of a digital JPEG photo like I sometimes did on a real photo print?

CLAUDE: Options discussed:
1. EXIF/Metadata “Description” field — invisible metadata baked into the file. Windows: right-click > Properties > Details > Comments. Mac: Preview > Tools > Show Inspector > Exif tab.
2. Add text directly onto the image — permanently burns note into the visible photo (Paint, Preview, Snapseed). Not reversible.
3. Rename the file — short notes like dates or names in the filename.
4. Sidecar file — plain .txt file with the same name alongside the photo.
5. Google Photos / Apple Photos “description” — caption lives in the app, not the file.
Best match for “writing on the back”: EXIF Description/Comment field.

——————————————————————————–

USER: yes [build a drag-and-drop EXIF note tool]

CLAUDE: Built an interactive browser-based widget allowing drag-and-drop of a JPEG, entry of Note/Description, Author/Photographer, Date taken, and Copyright fields, then download of the photo with metadata embedded.

——————————————————————————–

USER: Error writing metadata: ‘pack’ error. Got invalid type argument

CLAUDE: Fixed the error — XPTitle and XPComment fields require UTF-16 byte arrays, not plain strings. Dropped XPTitle, rewrote XPComment encoding. ImageDescription and Artist fields carry the note reliably.

——————————————————————————–

USER: How do i see it on mac osx

CLAUDE: On Mac:
– Quickest: Right-click photo > Get Info (Cmd+I) > More Info section
– Photos app: Import photo, press Cmd+I for info panel
– Preview app (best): Open in Preview > Tools > Show Inspector (Cmd+I) > Exif tab — shows ImageDescription and Artist fields exactly as written
– Finder: Can show Comments column but that is Spotlight comment, not EXIF data

——————————————————————————–

USER: jpeg

CLAUDE: The widget runs in the browser — Claude cannot rename the download directly. User can rename the downloaded file in Finder: select file, press Return, type new name. Offered to update the widget to produce a filename with !!! baked in.

——————————————————————————–

USER: download that edited picture with a filename “xyz.jpeg”

CLAUDE: The widget only runs in the browser — Claude cannot access or download files from it. Instructions to rename on Mac: find file in Downloads, click once to select, press Return to edit name, type xyz.jpeg and press Return.

——————————————————————————–

USER: capture the conversation in a text file

CLAUDE: Created this transcript file: conversation_transcript.txt

================================================================================
END OF TRANSCRIPT

# – # – # – # – #

Bottom line: It didn’t work.  I’m now very confused.

— 30 —

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AI: CLAUDEAI knows McD’s store numbers … … 

Sunday, April 26, 2026

I went to McD’s for a young boy’s dinner (not for me … … … … this time). 

They shorted us 1 chicken mc nugget.

When we got home, I fired up the web site to complain.

After many many questions, some are dumb, others were repetitive, and some were absurd.

The one that was most frustrating was the question — what it is the restaurant number?

Said it was on the receipt … … nope.

Look it up on the web … … nope.

Can’t submit the form without it!

On the off chance, I asked CLAUDE AI.

It knew it was 25184.

Score on for AI.

Next time, I’ll ask AI to complain for me.

Argh!

— 30 —

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AI: NOTEBOOKLM has captured this from my blog — the FED is a cartel operating against the public interest

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

NOTEBOOKLM has captured this from my blog Reinke Faces Life!

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/bba7a7c1-3105-417e-9b83-4b772c7a2ab7

*** begin quote ***

What is the author’s primary critique of the Federal Reserve?

The author’s primary critique of the Federal Reserve is that it is a private cartel of elite banks operating for their own benefit and the benefit of entrenched politicians, rather than a truly public or federal institution. The author argues that its name is a misnomer because it is not “federal,” it “reserves nothing,” and it is not a “bank”.
Key aspects of this critique include:
  • Currency Devaluation and Inflation: The author contends the Federal Reserve has printed so many dollars that it has devalued the currency by 95% since 1970. Specifically, the author gripes with the “2% inflation target,” arguing it is a mechanism that devalues personal savings and acts as a “fiat money steal” of wealth from the poor, the young, and those on fixed incomes.
  • Enabling Government Overreach: By moving away from a gold-backed dollar to a fiat system managed by the Federal Reserve, the author believes the “Gooferment” (government) is enabled to engage in an “endless spending spree,” “forever wars,” and “welfare to buy votes”.
  • Systemic Harms: Citing G. Edward Griffin, the author lists several reasons why the institution should be abolished, claiming it destabilizes the economy, is an instrument of totalitarianism, and serves as the “supreme instrument of usury”.
  • Moral and Historical Failure: The author contrasts the current system with the gold standard period (1870–1913), during which prices decreased while the standard of living increased. The author views the Federal Reserve’s takeover of money as a primary step on the “road to perdition” for the United States.
Ultimately, the author views the Federal Reserve as a cartel operating against the public interest and advises individuals to save in gold, silver, and other non-dollar assets to protect themselves from its effects.
 
*** end quote ***
 
What more can I say!
 
And I’m pushing this out on “Tax Day” in the USA.
 
“Inflation is theft, you’re stealing value from people who save money.”-Ron Paul
 
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — Milton Friedman
 
“What do you call it when someone steals someone else’s money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else’s money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else’s money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social justice.” — Thomas Sowell
 
“Taxation is theft” is a libertarian and anarcho-capitalist slogan arguing that government forcibly takes private property without consent, treating it as extortion or involuntary servitude.
 
 
— 30 —

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