POLICY: Seems like the jury was blinded to the facts by the judge?

Friday, August 22, 2025

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14919347/honor-killing-trial-lacey-washington-ihsan-ali-sentencing.html

Dad who ‘tried to strangle daughter in Muslim ‘honor killing’ is jailed for 32 months after shock verdict
By NIC WHITE, US SENIOR INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER
Published: 17:33 EDT, 18 August 2025 | Updated: 17:43 EDT, 18 August 2025

*** begin quote ***

A father accused of trying to strangle his teenage daughter in a Muslim ‘honor killing’ has been jailed for almost three years.

Ihsan Ali, 44, stood trial for second-degree attempted murder alongside his wife Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, over the October 18, 2024, attack.

A Thurston County Superior Court jury found them not guilty on July 31, but convicted Ihsan of lesser charges against his daughter Fatima Ali.

*** end quote ***

It’s obvious that this was a miscarriage of “justice” to this girl.

The report doesn’t say what their immigration status is.  

Regardless of what it is, the husband and wife should be either deported or denaturalized and deported.

It further apparent that they have not be good “citizens” hence the felony convictions.

I like Japan’s treatment of “muslims” due to their conduct and failure to live peacefully in civil society.  

Islam is NOT a “religion”; it’s an ideology that seeks to fundamentally change society.

Hence, as a gun-owning pro-life pro-choice little L libertarian, they should depart from the USA and return to wherever they came from.  They are not … …

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

… … “yearning to breathe free” and as such are not welcome to share in the American experiment.

Argh!

— 30 — 


NEWJERSEY: What was he doing out after ONE DWI charge?

Thursday, August 21, 2025

https://savejersey.com/2025/08/journalist-ratioed-dwi-illegal-alien-ocean-county-new-jersey/

Journalist ratioed for declaring illegal alien fatal DWI suspect (with two prior arrests this year) had “largely clean driving record”
August 14, 2025 Matt Rooney

*** begin quote ***

His conviction record may be light? After all, he came here illegally from somewhere else! But to suggest a man with three pending DWI charges in a single year has a “largely clean” driving record is, at best, grossly manipulative particularly since the debate is over whether Phil Murphy’s sanctuary statehood regime prevented this asshole from being deported; had he been deported after either of the other alleged DWIs this year, then a mother and her child would still be alive today.

*** end quote ***

What was he doing out after ONE DWI charge?

If I was the judge, I’d have found a way to keep him off the road.  And, after the third charge, I’d say he was a “near and present” danger, and needed “quarantining”.

Lock him up until the trials.

Argh!

And, maybe the judge should be recalled or retired?

Argh!

— 30 — 


HEALTHCARE: Check for coupons at drug manufacture’s web sites

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

LPT: Check for coupons at drug manufacture’s web sites

A relative of mine was at CVS picking up Treligy and paid a $150 copay. The lady clerk advised her to go home an check the Galaxo website for a coupon for a year’s free copay. If ok, come back with the coupon and receipt and she get a refund. When she did, she found it and the Rx was for someone not on Medicare or Medicaid, she got the coupon and got a refund.

Lesson learned: When taking a brand name med, always check the maker’s website for coupons. Only takes a few minutes and may pay off big time.

FWIW YMMV

— 30 —


ENCOURAGING: Samaritan’s Purse is a great example of “foreign aid”

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/a-flourishing-garden-of-faith-in-liberia/

A Flourishing Garden of Faith in Liberia

  • In her desperation, Tutu cried out to God. He answered through a Samaritan’s Purse urban gardening project, which is now blessing her and others in need. 

© Copyright 2025 Samaritan’s Purse. All rights reserved.
Samaritan’s Purse
PO Box 3000
Boone, NC 28607
828.262.1980

*** begin quote ***

Hunger and malnutrition are constant threats in Liberia, with few safety nets to catch families when they fall. Here, in one of the poorest nations on earth, parents often face incredibly difficult choices.

*** and ***

The Samaritan’s Purse team brought shovels, hoes, rakes, a wheelbarrow. There were also seeds for lettuce, tomato, beetroot, pepper, and cabbage.

Our team showed Tutu how to build raised garden beds, how to space her crops for sunlight and airflow, and how to grow vegetables in sacks—a method she’d never seen before but one critical for avoiding erosion and soil diseases.

“I already knew a little about planting cassava—that’s a common food here—but I had never seen a garden with all these things,” she said. “Especially one growing in bags. That was new to me.”

*** end quote ***

I love when a true charity sparks in the dejected impoverished individual entrepreneurship and that lifts them out of poverty and spreads dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom) organically in civil society.  What more can someone ask for their personal “foreign aid” donation that to truly change the world?

I’ve read many times small charities distribute livestock to needy families or villages and eliminated starvation and poverty by introducing “capital animals” to spark optimism, hope, and industry.  

Just recently, I read about “camel’s milk” becoming an “industry” by the introduction of some knowledge (i.e., camel care; processing milk) and some technology (i.e., milking tools and technique).  How much could that have cost?  And the “uplift” is enormous. 

Western civilization has uncovered “capitalism” as the key that unlocks the prison of poverty.  No better way to get hostile individuals to cooperate than by demonstrating “win win” solutions. 

I’ve often thought badly about USA’s “foreign aid” which is described as “poor people in the USA donating to rich people in foreign countries”. What better way to transform it than to get “We, The Sheeple” to support these transformative charities.  Gooferment can’t do “charity” efficiently or effectively.  Private organizations can focus on worthy causes and individuals.  Time to end Gooferment “foreign aid”.

— 30 —


ENCOURAGING: Maybe AI isn’t so good after all

Monday, August 18, 2025

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/ask-ai-why-it-sucks-at-sudoku-youll-find-out-something-troubling-about-chatbots/#ftag=CADf328eec

Ask AI Why It Sucks at Sudoku. You’ll Find Out Something Troubling About Chatbots

  • How much can you trust a generative AI tool if it can’t explain itself honestly or accurately? 

Jon Reed  —  Aug. 8, 2025 4:00 a.m. PT

*** begin quote ***

That’s what researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder found when they challenged large language models to solve sudoku. And not even the standard 9×9 puzzles. An easier 6×6 puzzle was often beyond the capabilities of an LLM without outside help (in this case, specific puzzle-solving tools).

*** and ***

You might expect LLMs to be able to solve sudoku because they’re computers and the puzzle consists of numbers, but the puzzles themselves are not really mathematical; they’re symbolic. “Sudoku is famous for being a puzzle with numbers that could be done with anything that is not numbers,” said Fabio Somenzi, a professor at CU and one of the research paper’s authors.

*** end quote ***

That’s some “wonderkid” you’ve been celebrating in the press.  “AI will revolutionize … <insert favorite profession>”! 

So we have kids using it to cheat in school; NBD  —  no big deal.

Legal opinions cite incorrectly or cites non-existent court cases —  BIG deal!

And, now it can solve a 6×6 sudoku.  Or gives the wrong answer?

With the final straw, it can’t “show it’s work” (i.e., the steps it used to reach the “solution”).

Pardon me if I declare AI “not ready for prime time”!

The human equivalent is the Titan submersible suffering a catastrophic implosion and you want me to let is drive a truck?  We don’t need AI to make disasters.  Humanity can do it quite well without help.

— 30 —

 


SECURITY: No technology needed for this hack; just call up and lie

Sunday, August 17, 2025

https://www.wnd.com/2025/08/helpdesk-havoc-why-clorox-is-suing-indian-company/

Why Clorox is suing Indian company for $380 million

  • In Clorox’s telling, the hacker didn’t crack advanced encryption or spear-phish executives. He just called Cognizant on the phone and lied

By Amanda Bartolotta  —  August 7, 2025

*** begin quote ***

In a San Francisco courtroom, the Clorox Company recently dropped a legal bombshell – a $380 million lawsuit against Indian-American information technology company Cognizant, alleging gross negligence in a 2023 cyberattack.

In the complaint dated July 22, 2025, Clorox contends a hacker simply called Cognizant’s helpdesk, lied about being an employee and was handed network credentials – no identity verification, no oversight, just a password transfer. The resulting cyberattack ended up paralyzing Clorox’s operations, costing upwards of $49 million in remediation and much more in lost business.

*** end quote ***

Way back when I ran an information security desk, long before “password managers”, in the “yellow sticky note” era, I was challenged to reduce the number of password resets my group was doing.  Not for security; a cost saving attempt.  (We figured that every call cost the company about 50$ in lost productivity.)  So my team came up with a great solution, when a call came in for a forgotten password, we’d just have the person have his supervisor call in for a reset.  Laugh!  Calls dropped dramatically.  It was trivial to verify the supervisor since we’d just call them back at their number listed in the company phonebook.  (Those still existed.)  Then the supervisor would connect the employee and we’d do the reset.  Call dropped so much we had weekly pool when the next one would come in.  (Dollar a head per week.  Pool grew about 20$ per week.)  Sometimes we went a month without a reset.

Guess outsourcing your help desk was NOT so cost effective?

— 30 — 


GOVEROTRAGEOUS: When the Gooferment dosn’t stand up for property rights …

Saturday, August 16, 2025

https://voxday.net/2025/08/06/a-conquered-people/

A Conquered People

*** begin quote ***

The British people still haven’t figured out yet that neither their police nor their government represent them or are on their side. And they’re still too “law-abiding” and respectful of “authority” to take matters into their own hands, even when their homes are literally being occupied by foreigners. From 4chan:

*** and ***

My husband wants to break in and throw them out with his brothers. I’ve told him not to do this.

*** and ***

If you won’t even defend your homes, your wives, or your daughters, you are a conquered people. You WILL be dispossessed and no one will shed any tears for you. Notice that the wife has actively dissuaded her husband from doing the only thing that will recover their home in a reasonable amount of time.

*** end quote ***

How many times in the past few years have we read about “squatters” (usually illegal immigrants) taking over someone’s property?  And, all attempts to get them out have failed.  “Squatters” magically become “tenants” with “rights” and “due process”.  And, if and when they are tossed out, the places is in ruins.  That’s just not right.

  • Why if they present a “false document” are they not immediately arrested for fraud? (Maybe leases have to be filed with the courts like deeds for a small recording fee?  On a blockchain to be easily seen by authorities?)
  • Why when they do get tossed are they not held liable for damages?
  • And, if they are illegals, why are they not IMMEDIATELY deported?
  • Why is such behavior tolerated by civil society?

In short, the Gooferment is lax in their protections of property.

Argh!

— 30 —


GUNS: The FGC-9 (Fuck Gun Control 9mm) was designed by Jacob Duygu and the genie is out of the bottle big time

Friday, August 15, 2025

https://reason.com/2025/08/08/making-the-world-freer-with-homemade-guns/

Making the World Freer with Homemade Guns

  • DIY firearms aren’t just an end-run around the law; they represent a libertarian political movement.

J.D. Tuccille | 8.8.2025 7:00 AM 

*** begin quote ***

Recently, while touting gun seizures in a city that has some of the most authoritarian gun laws in the United States, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch lamented, “the number of illegal guns that we’ve seen used in New York City has exploded since 3D technology has come about.” She’s not alone. Homemade guns are increasingly sophisticated and available almost everywhere. That’s a good thing.

*** and ***

Summarizing events at June’s MoneroKon conference in Prague, an annual meeting devoted to “privacy-enhancing technologies and distributed systems,” security expert Zoltán Füredi described a presentation by the pseudonymous Zé Carioca, designer of the recently unveiled Urutau, a 9mm select-fire firearm designed to be constructed with a 3D printer and components purchased at any hardware store. Rather than focus on his creation, Zé Carioca instead championed 3D-printed firearms as companions to cryptocurrency in challenging the power and reach of governments.

“His speech blurred the lines between technology, ideology, and extreme libertarian politics,” commented Füredi. He added of the speakers’ message, “Just as the freedom to transact (via cryptocurrency) is now seen as a fundamental human right, so too should be the right to bear arms—worldwide.”

*** end quote ***

The (God given) Human Right to self-defense is essential the embodiment of the little L libertarian First Principle of Self-Ownership.  If we don’t “own” ourselves, then who does?

Somewhere in the Libertarian An-Cap literature is the recognition that “rights” are: (a) something we have all agree that every human has; or (b) those things that an individual will die defending.  To me, either definition is acceptable.  There might be be another criteria around somewhere that a “right” is whatever and whenever a human can asset and defend it.  Not so sure about that; do babies and fetuses have rights?

Interesting that the gun grabbers (i.e., politicians and bureaucrats) can NOT keep guns out of the hands of criminals.  Sometimes they even get into their “jails”.  And, like drugs, they can keep humans from finding way to get what they want. 

So too, guns are merely tools and as such can’t be kept away from any human who is motivated and wants one.

I’m interested in how the WWII “liberator” handgun was used to arm the Nazi resistance.  Why is today’s Gooferments beginning to look like Nazi Germany?   (Remember the Japanese internment?)  Tyrants and their regimes can not exist if the population just refuses to be terrorized.  Ghost guns are the perfect solution to prevent that.  Even here in the USA.

— 30 —


PHILOSOPHY: I’m an injieeer; not a heavy thinker

Thursday, August 14, 2025

https://bigthink.com/thinking/the-thought-experiments-that-test-your-life-not-your-logic/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter

Thinking — August 5, 2025

The thought experiments that test your life, not your logic

Why some of philosophy’s strangest scenarios are more than mental games.

A group of people in ancient attire react to shadows cast on a wall, referencing Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Key Takeaways

  • Philosophical thought experiments aim to test, stretch, or even shatter our intuitions about how the world works.
  • Some reveal cracks in arguments. Others ask for more than analysis — they press us to confront existence, question identity, and reevaluate what we live for.
  • Here, philosopher Shai Tubali explores three distinct types of thought experiments, including ones that can reshape how you live life. 

Shai Tubali

*** begin quote ***

A lone figure stands at the edge of the Universe and hurls a spear into the unknown, only to find the edge wasn’t an edge after all. A demon tells a chronically ill person that every moment of their life — every high, every hardship — will repeat forever, exactly as it is. A 16-year-old boy tries to travel alongside a beam of light, hoping to catch up, but no matter how fast he goes, it never slows. Someone is offered the chance to live in a simulated paradise, but there’s a catch: Once inside, they’ll forget it isn’t real. And a human falls in love with a consciousness that has no body, no boundaries, and no need for them.

*** end quote ***

What captured my eye was in the email:

*** begin quote ***

with Stephen Johnson • Thu 7 August, 2025

Hey Big Thinkers,

“Which do you prefer?” my fiancée asked me, pointing to wedding flowers in two vases, each one thoughtfully holding the flowers in a unique arrangement. Or so I was told. To my eye, they looked the same. In that moment of indecision, I became Buridan’s ass — the dim donkey in an old philosophical thought experiment stuck between two equidistant and identical piles of hay. With no reason to choose one over the other, the donkey starves.

Buridan’s ass is meant to satirically highlight the limits of rational determinism, the idea that we always choose based on the strongest reason. In real life, you don’t wither away in analysis paralysis; you just pick something. “The left one,” I said.

Thought experiments can refine and poke holes in your arguments and intuitions. But some go much further. As philosopher Shai Tubali writes this week, one particular kind of thought experiment can transform you by challenging not your logic but the way you choose (or don’t choose) to live life.

*** end quote ***

I’d never heard of “Buridan’s ass” (i.e., the donkey starves between two equidistant and identical piles of hay).  To a fat old white guy injineer, it obvious!  You just flip a mental coin and who cares if it’s heads or tails.  

The article goes on to itemize a whole lot of philosophical thought experiments.  Some I’d heard of; some not.

  • Lucretius’ spear flung at the edge of the Universe 
  • Nietzsche’s vision of eternal recurrence
  • Einstein’s attempt to chase a beam of light
  • Robert Nozick’s 1974 Experience Machine.
  • Spike Jonze’s Her a bodiless mind.
  • Zeno’s paradox of a race between Achilles and a tortoise
  • Einstein’s elevator and train
  • Schrödinger’s cat
  • Heisenberg’s microscope
  • Plato’s cave
  • Wittgenstein’s beetle
  • Foot’s trolley problem
  • Putnam’s brain in a vat
  • Searle’s Chinese room
  • Avicenna’s flying man 
  • Thomas Nagel’s “food for other species”
  • Williams’s Makropulos’ living for 300 years

He categorizes these into: Clarifiers, Shifters, and Transformers.

The final quote is epic:

Thought experiments can walk alongside us, animating our inner lives. They aren’t merely tools of reason — they are instruments of reflection. At their best, they revive philosophy’s oldest purpose: not thinking for its own sake, but thinking that informs how we live.

This article gave me a lot to investigate. 

— 30 —


HEALTHCARE: AI App That Quickly Appeals Denials

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/big-insurance-uses-ai-to-quickly-deny-claims-physican-fights-back-with-ai-app-that-quickly-appeals/?utm_source=newsletter.goodnewsnetwork.org&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=your-5-min-dose-of-good-news-ducks-take-over-town-center&_bhlid=9ae55e2f638cb4ac2fda40c6fc7c6f7bac698b74

Big Insurance Uses AI to Quickly Deny Claims, One Man Fights Back with AI App That Quickly Appeals
By Andy Corbley – Aug 5, 2025 

*** begin quote ***

The idea that American health insurance companies are using AI to analyze and adjudicate claims for approval or denial sounds terrifying, but one North Carolinian is using AI to fight back.

When Raleigh resident Neal Shah had a claim denied for his wife’s chemotherapy drugs, he thought it was rare, that he was the only one, that it was just bad luck.

Litigating his case on phone calls that lasted for hours changed the husband and father, and he set about creating a sophisticated app that uses artificial intelligence to compare claims denial forms against health insurance contracts, before automatically drafting an appeal letter.

*** and ***

they’ve built Counterforce to the point where it boasts a 70% success rate in appealing claims.

*** end quote ***

https://www.counterforcehealth.org/

# – # – # – # – # 

I like the “fight fire with fire” approach.

Completely free?  Astonishing. Wish I had a claim to arbitrate!

(Surprised that Big Insurance hasn’t bought them out or engaged in “lawfare” against them.)

To me, “health” and “healthcare” is not just about “the care you get or don’t get for your health”, but also all the “systems” adjacent to it.

Wonder if this will inspire other efforts to enlist AI against other “insurance” abuses (i.e., raising premiums; denial of coverage; use alf drones and AI against ordinary folks; credit card appeals)?

One could apply the concept to all sorts of adversarial interactions like “eminent domain”, intrusive Gooferment actions like regulations, or “cash confiscations”.

What a great time to be a programmer with today’s opportunities.

How about AI to lobby politicians and bureaucrats to “do the right thing”?

Any other uses?  Leave a comment.

— 30 —


INTERESTING: How to memorize unfathomably long lists of information

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/p/memory-champion-explains-how-she?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febe8de59-170a-4391-9882-82e66a8b2f37_1200x675.webp&open=false

Memory champion explains how she memorizes 1,080 numbers in 30 minutes

  • Katie Kermode — a memory athlete with four world records — tells Big Think about her unique spin on an ancient technique to memorize unfathomably long lists of information.

Big Think and Stephen Johnson
Aug 05, 2025

*** begin quote ***

What image does the number 693 produce in your mind? For Katie Kermode, who holds four world records in memory championships, the answer is a theatrical showman. She has a mental image handy for all numbers between 1 and 999. The number 522, for instance, makes her visualize red lentils “spilling everywhere.” And 711 conjures a cat.

These images aren’t arbitrarily selected. If you’ve ever wondered how it’s humanly possible for someone to recite 70,030 digits of pi from memory, as Suresh Kumar Sharma did in 2015, the answer is that they’re almost certainly using a mnemonic technique — a strategy that helps you remember and retrieve long lists of information by simplifying it into more relatable or easily visualized concepts.

*** end quote ***

Quite amazing to me.  I can usually remember a phone number.  BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), a credit card number … …  nah.  I may try this system.

— 30 —


DISCOURAGING: Comcast Customer Email Accounts to Yahoo Mail

Monday, August 11, 2025

https://cordcuttersnews.com/comcast-is-shutting-down-its-email-service-moving-customer-email-accounts-to-yahoo-mail/

Comcast is Shutting Down Its Email Service & Moving Customer Email Accounts to Yahoo Mail
By Luke Bouma on August 2, 2025

*** begin quote ***

In a significant change, Comcast has announced plans to transition all Comcast.net email accounts from its current Xfinity Email platform to the Yahoo Mail platform. The announcement, detailed in an email sent to customers on August 2, 2025, outlines a phased migration set to occur over the next several months, promising improved functionality and advanced features for its users.

According to the email from Comcast, the shift to Yahoo Mail will provide customers with a “premium email solution” designed to streamline communication and organization. Yahoo Mail’s AI-driven inbox management, robust security features, integrated calendar, and highly rated mobile app were highlighted as key benefits of the transition. Importantly, Comcast assured customers that their existing Comcast.net email addresses, along with all messages, folders, and contacts, will remain intact during the move.

*** end quote ***

FYI Yahoo is primarily owned by Apollo Global Management, which holds a 90% stake, while Verizon retains a 10% ownership. The company operates as a standalone entity under the name Yahoo! Inc. Apollo Global Management is a private equity firm that bought AOL and Yahoo from Verizon. 

Way back when I was first reinkefj@att.net and later when I became reinkefj@comcast.net (Are you detecting a pattern here?). I advise family, frends, and basically anyone who would listen that this “free” email was a lock-in so you could never change ISPs. A quick scan of the Reinke Faces Life blog will show you my griping back in 2010.

May I suggest that you have your own domain? The common wisdom, or is that common whizdumb, is to own your own name as a domain name. I own “reinke.cc”. (I like saying “sea sea me at reinke.cc”! me@reinke.cc will actually work!) 

It gives one quite a bit of control. And, it’s very cheap. I know three solutions: wordpressdotcom with gmail, email only with 1and1, and domain+email+webspace also at 1and1. 

My point is not that you should use 1and1. http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9113251 I could care less which one you use. It’s that getting on to your own domain with email is cheap and easy. 

And, it’s not aol, hotmail, yahoo, or gmail. It IS your own “personal brand”. And, the “bad guys” can’t fool you!

P.S.: 1and1 is now IONOS.

Let’s look over the Google Graveyard for all the vendors who have passed away with our data.

  • Google Graveyard: Google groups, Google Short Links;
  • Yahoo took down: Yahoo! Briefcase on March 30, 2009 and Yahoo! Groups before that;
  • AT&T ASHcan contains: AT&T Locker, AT&T Photos, and AT&T.net email;
  • Amazon “Sunseted”: Dash and other buttons, and the Amazon product wand;
  • Mozilla did the old Pocket-punt;
  • Microsoft wants you to forget HealthVault and Docs.com file-sharing;
  • CARDSCAN was acquired by Rubber Maid and went down shortly after that;
  • And FINALLY Plaxo, the cardscan replacement, that also disappeared. 

Never mind all the hardware devices that were given the heave ho after being bought by suckers like me.

Soooooo, under the heading of “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!”, I’d urge you to take firm control of your choices.  If your data goes in, then ask how does it come out?”  If the answer is not obvious, then tread carefully the data you save may be your own.

Argh!

— 30 —


MEME: RKBA is not about defending against deer

Sunday, August 10, 2025

 

Robert W Malone MD from “Who is Robert Malone”

Sunday Strip: If You are Going to Think…

Think big.

Robert W Malone MD, MS

Aug 10

— 30 —


ENGINEERING: China has a two-ton electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft; what does the USA have?

Sunday, August 10, 2025

https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/china-evtol-offshore-rig-delivery

World’s first two-ton electric cargo aircraft cuts 10-hour trip to under 1 hour

  • This Chinese heavy-lift drone is a game changer for offshore missions.

Updated: Aug 04, 2025 08:42 AM EST

*** begin quote ***

China has completed what it calls the world’s first offshore oil-platform cargo mission by a two-ton electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft.

The unmanned V2000CG CarryAll took off from the coastal city of Shenzhen on Sunday, carried fresh fruit and emergency medical supplies across open water for 58 minutes, and touched down 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) away on a China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) platform.

*** and ***

From ten-hour boat runs to one-hour drone hops

*** and ***

Taken together, the advances point to a logistics sector on the verge of rapid change. Long-haul trucking and maritime shuttles remain indispensable for bulk freight, but heavy-lift eVTOLs offer a new middle ground. They are faster than ships, cheaper and cleaner than helicopters, and can reach small landing pads or parking-lot “vertiports” that fixed-wing aircraft cannot.

The Shenzhen-to-rig mission is expected to become regular sorties carrying maintenance parts, food, and medical kits. At the same time, the sale of the first fully certified V2000CG CarryAll signals the beginning of commercial deployment for large-scale eVTOL operations in real-world logistics environments.

*** end quote ***

I’ve often thought that the Gooferment, private industry, or some tech mogul could spark innovation here in the USA by offering something like “Nobel Prizes” for a SPIRO (Specific, Performance or results, Involvement or support, Realistic, Observable) achievement.

I’m not sure that the dollar amount would be as motivating as the prestige of winning it.

Someone should give DJT4547 a list of what would be EPIC HEROIC accomplishments.  Like the various awards that are given out, for BEST of something.

“Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.”” — RFK

“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” — John F. Kennedy inaugural address

Use the “bully pulpit” to inspire action.

— 30 —


NEWJERSEY: Don’t make NJ a “two tier” society where politicians have “rights” the ordinary citizen does NOT have

Saturday, August 9, 2025

https://www.gunowners.org/nj08012025/

NJ: Gun rights for me, but not for thee!
Written by Grant Clarkson Published: 02 August 2025

*** begin quote ***

Under this bill (A 5958) elected officials and their chiefs of staff would be allowed to carry handguns without a permit, possess rifles and shotguns without a Firearms Purchaser ID, and transport these firearms without fear of persecution, all of which are illegal for me as a law-abiding New Jersey resident!

*** end quote ***

As a gun-owning pro-life pro-choice little L libertarian, I don’t want you to create a “two tier” society where politicians have “rights” that “We, The Sheeple” don’t have.  This is yet another step towards creating the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee.  

Argh!

— 30 —


DISCOURAGING: “Civil society” isn’t getting any more “civilized”!

Friday, August 8, 2025

https://www.lifenews.com/2025/07/21/canada-plans-to-euthanize-15-million-people-in-the-next-20-years/

Canada Plans to Euthanize 15 Million People in the Next 20 Years
International | Bobby Schindler | Jul 21, 2025 | 9:44AM | Ottawa, Canada 

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In a recent video, Kelsi Sheren, a Canadian combat veteran, host of The Kelsi Sheren Perspective, and an outspoken opponent of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) policies, shared how Canada’s government-controlled healthcare system plans to euthanize an estimated 15 million Canadians between 2027 and 2047, a staggering figure justified under the pretext of cost savings.

*** and ***

What often goes unnoticed, however, is that existing U.S. healthcare policies are already enabling the quiet killing of vulnerable Americans – not through legalized suicide, but through hospital protocols and policies that deny care, withdraw treatment, or subtly hasten death.

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As gun-owning pro-life pro-choice little L libertarian, I am not surprised that a “culture of death” has overwhelmed the morality of “We, The Sheeple”.  Abortion has desensitized us to mass murder.  The worst serial killer, school shooter, or crazy killer nurse can not come near the body count of today’s politicians and bureaucrats. Recently, Secretary RFK jr has comet against organ donations from living donors that will kill the “donor”.  To me, that’s just murder.

Unless “We, The Sheeple” react strongly and punish the “enablers” of these horrific killings, it’s only going to get worse.  Already, people are revoking the organ donor choice on their driver’s license (another insult to liberty).  And is anyone surprised?

The Catholic Church has completely lost its “moral authority” by pedophilia, financial mismanagement, liberal “theology”, “climate change”, illegal immigration, and a vast number of “political issues”.  

Shame is, “We, The Sheeple” could use a beacon of “moral authority” today!

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SURVIVAL: A Provoked Attack

Thursday, August 7, 2025

A Provoked Attack:

[The reasons don’t seem unclear to me.]

Today, friend-of-the-site Chris D. passed along with the latest in fucking around and finding out. Hunter Asher Watkins was fatally gored by a South African buffalo he had been hunting.

Local residents call the buffalo species found in the area, Cape buffalo, the “Black Death” because to their reputation for causing approximately 200 deaths annually and for claiming more game hunters’ lives than lions, rhinos or crocodiles.

Perhaps folks should consider just leaving the buffalo alone.

Link: https://www.irishstar.com/news/millionaire-big-game-hunter-gored-35684171

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What a great idea.  Only kill what you can eat or “create” (impossible).

And while we are at it, let’s remind the Yellowstone tourists, and others, to leave the “fluffy cows” alone too.  They are bigger, faster, and more irratible than the worst “Karen” you know.

Stop nominating yourself for a  “Darwin award”.  You’re ineligible unless your over 18 and still reproducing.

Argh!

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SURVIVAL: Thinking about a fall in the shower at home; not every survival tip is about surviving in the wilderness

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Just got out of the shower and while I was in there, I thought what if I fell.

Normally, I always have my iwatch on but not in the shower. Often, I’m not alone at home but today I am alone and no one is expected back until 6 or 7pm.

So, if you don’t mind, when I’m showering and alone in the house, I’ll text a “safety buddy” that I’m going in and coming out.

Seems like a rare occurrence, but but then I think of my summertime neighbor whose first husband died alone going into their basement when he slipped and fell.

Or, OTOH, I just won’t shower if alone in the house.

Or, to be really safe, just never shower again.

Laugh! Silly things I think about. 

YMMV

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PEACE: Was it “necessary”?

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

FROM 1440 https://join1440.com/

80th Anniversary of Hiroshima

Today marks 80 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The attack—the first military use of a nuclear bomb—precipitated the end of the US war with Japan and killed an estimated 140,000 people over several months (see photos).

On Aug. 6, 1945, US Col. Paul Tibbets flew a B-29 bomber from the island of Tinian to Hiroshima carrying a 9,700-pound uranium bomb nicknamed “Little Boy.” At about 8:15 am, the bomb detonated roughly 1,900 feet over the city center, sending surface temperatures above 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Then-President Harry Truman had agreed to bomb Hiroshima, which had a civilian population of 300,000 and about 43,000 soldiers, to convince Japan to surrender. See Tibbets’ reflections here (w/video). See survivors’ reflections here.

The US followed the Hiroshima bombing with an atomic bomb targeting Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945. Learn more about the Manhattan Project via 1440 Topics here.

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I remember the Christian Brothers discussing in class about the “Just War” doctrine and the use of Atomic Bombs.  Of course, I brought the topic home.  Strangely, my war time uncles, both vets and essential civilian workers, were quiet or muted about how necessary it was, but my aunts were totally fine with it.  Freshly, “educated” by the “Just War” doctrine, I asked “what about the children?”.  That ended the topic discussion.  I think forever.  Or, at least forever, in my presence.

I ask the same question now for Gaza.  As I did for Kuwait, Afghanistan, the Holocaust, Cambodia, … … essentially any time I hear about “fighting”.  Makes me sad to think of the children in all the war zones.  As well as living in poverty around the USA and the world.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”  ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

I wonder how many Einsteins, Pasteurs, Bannings, Mozarts, and DaVincis have died never getting to make their contributions to humanity.

Sigh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Now DROPBOX introducted the “dropbox dustbin”

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

https://www.androidauthority.com/dropbox-password-manager-discontinued-3582689/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyauthority&utm_term=Daily%20Authority

Dropbox says it’s time to find a new password manager as it prepares to shut down service

  • Time to say goodbye to Dropbox Passwords.

By Ryan McNeal 21 hours ago
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2025-07-31>>

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  •     Dropbox Passwords users will no longer be able to add new passwords on August 28, 2025.
  •     The mobile app is scheduled to stop working on September 11, 2025.
  •     The password manager will be fully discontinued on October 28, 2025.

Dropbox Passwords users will soon have to find a new password manager to store their passwords, usernames, and other sensitive data. The company will be shutting down the service in the next couple of months.

Dropbox has announced that it is preparing to sunset its password manager. According to a help center document, the decision was made so that the company can “focus on enhancing other features in our core product.” The full service is scheduled to be discontinued on October 28, 2025, but the shutdown will be carried out in phases.

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“Sunsetting”?  Argh!  Call it what it is “shrinkflation”.

Why they ever pursued it is beyond me.  

And, they don’t suggest BITWARDEN which is basically free.

Is OnePassword or Lastpass an affiliate link?

Argh!

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MEME: GOVERNMENT & MEDIA RIDICULE

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

MY FAVORITE (if this is TL;DR)

 

 

 

 

 

GOVERNMENT & MEDIA RIDICULE:

 


DISCOURAGING: Whistle pet trackers to IoT graveyard

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/acquisition-sends-thousands-of-whistle-pet-trackers-to-iot-graveyard/

Acquisition sends thousands of Whistle pet trackers to IoT graveyard

  • Whistle pet monitors will stop working on August 31.

Scharon Harding – Jul 29, 2025 1:38 PM |

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Whistle pet trackers are headed to the Internet of Things (IoT) graveyard. After releasing its first product in 2013, the Seattle-based Whistle has just been acquired by a competitor that has decided to brick all of Whistle’s smart GPS and activity monitors.

Tractive, an Austrian company that has also been selling Internet-connected GPS trackers for pets since 2013, on Monday announced its acquisition of Whistle from Mars Petcare, as spotted by The Verge. Mars Petcare is the pet food subsidiary of Mars Inc (which also makes candies like M&M’s), and it acquired Whistle in 2016 for $117 million.

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Where is the “consumer protection”?  I won’t be buying M&M’s anytime soon.  This is a complete betrayal of loyal customers.  

Wonder if we will see any litigation as a result? 

Anyone wonder what the Gooferment at any level is stepping up to enforce Customer’s interests?

If not, why are they there?

Argh!

Google Graveyard, AT&T Ashcan, Amazon depreciation, … … or <synonym for the act of procreation> you! … … shrinkflation.

As they say on Wall Street, there is always a “counter party risk”.  Or in layman’s terms: “Life time guarantee  —  but whose lifetime?”

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POLITICAL: 1994 IVF miracle: World’s ‘oldest baby’ born in US from embryo frozen for 30 years

Monday, August 4, 2025

1994 IVF miracle: World’s ‘oldest baby’ born in US from embryo frozen for 30 years:

A baby boy has been born in the U.S. from an embryo frozen for over three decades, setting a new record for the longest-stored embryo to result in a successful live birth.

Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, a baby boy born on July 26, 2025, to parents Lindsey (35) and Tim Pierce (34) in Ohio, is being called the world’s “oldest baby.”

According to the MIT Technology Review, the embryo that he was born from was created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1994 and cryopreserved for 30 years.

The parents adopted the embryo from US-based Linda Archerd (now aged 62).

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This will stimulate a lot of “legal” questions: 

  • How old is the child?
  • Is there child support issues?
  • Are there health implications or developmental concerns?
  • Is this “moral”?

And that’s just off the top of my head.

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TECHNOLOGY: Why can’t I control my tv from my phone?

Monday, August 4, 2025

I was thinking the other night, when the local TV and Comcast weren’t “speaking” to each other, why can’t I just use an app on my phone to debug the problem?

Everything was on the same LAN.  We had the TV remote and the Cable remote.

But wasn’t that completely unnecessary?

… … 

Also I’ve been a sports bars where the patrons were forced to watch whatever was on at the time, when voting to change the channel could have easily been accommodated by a common app.

And, how about putting on the closed caption feature for those of us who need it. Rather than forcing us to buy an expensive hearing aid.

… …

Seems like technology is letting us all down.

Argh!

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MEME: The Fourth Monkey has emerged

Sunday, August 3, 2025

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POLITICAL: Why does the USA fund the Israeli Gaza extermination?

Sunday, August 3, 2025

https://tuckercarlson.com/john-aguilar-highlights-2

Firsthand Witness: They Shoot Into Crowds Of Unarmed Starving Civilians, Highlights
Premiered 1 day ago•13 mins

<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2025-08-02>>

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Tucker and Tony Aguilar discuss the horrific animal-like treatment of civilians in Gaza at the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Ok here’s a post that will probably offend about ½ the country, get me kicked off Social Media sites again, and get a lot of <synonym for excrement> from family, friends, and strangers.

BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), here goes!

I am moved to almost tears  — and I’ve only cried real tears a few times in my life  — I’m not a “crier” or a “Karen” about most everything.  I try an emulate The Buddha, WWJD, and be the pessimistic optimistic (i.e. plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it turns out better than expected) I think I am.  On most things, I figure “small stuff” “this too will pass” and “it could be a lot worse”.  I sit at my keyboard nearing the end of my adventure and “Face Life”.  Just like this blog’s title “Reinke Faces Life”.  

This <synonym for excrement> in Gaza has got to stop.  Killing starving humans and inflicting savage trauma and death on little children has really gotten to my heart and soul.

While there is little I can do about it directly, other that sit and rant, I don’t intend to sit and let it go on without speaking up. Pastor Martin Niemöller spoke up when there was big price to pay. 

Now I am a gun-owning pro-life pro-choice little L libertarian and think that the “system” is the problem.  But this has gone on too far and for too long.

The President DJT4547 can stop this with a stroke of a pen but seems to be unable to muster up the moral fortitude to say to Israel: “Stop!  The USA is not giving you another dime until it stops.”   (He could do the same with Ukraine but that’s a topic for another day!)

I have never been a fan of the US foreign policy for as long as I can remember.  The Christian Brothers, all vets from WWII and Korea, made me anti-war.  I remember the pro-Israel propaganda back when I first recognized it in the movie “Cast A Giant Shadow”.  Bit I also remember the USS Liberty being attacked by Israel and the US Gooferment didn’t say “boo”!①

Yes, I remember the atrocity of October 7th.  It was horrific.  But, when you have humans in box and are torturing men, women, and children, don’t be surprised when the “worm turns … … into a snake” and bites you.  When you back men into a corner, they will attack with savagery and mercilessness that will stun you.  

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . .” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Seems like Palestinians are a lot like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.  

So starting today, I am going to annoy all the politicians and bureaucrats to stop funding Israel.

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FOOTNOTE:

①  USS Liberty. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/06/08/were-fed-it-survivors-of-uss-liberty-look-answers-55-years-later.html

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