Just Because You Can
Military and First Responders of all flavors are fully aware of a character known as “The Good Idea Fairy.” (GIF) This guy is often displayed as a character that looks like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, but with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, a tutu, and fairy wings. Well, thinking about it, my wife and I believe that GIF is actually Loki. Consider some of the stories from the legends about Loki’s exploits, and I think you’ll agree. Sometimes his crazy ideas actually work, but even when they work, they’re not sane.
This week, we’re going to talk about wisdom. It’s a running joke in the Role-Playing Game (RPG) community that “Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that even though a tomato is a fruit, that doesn’t mean it should go in fruit salad.” There’s a lot of folks lately that are failing that wisdom roll and we’re going to explore some of those. Dinner is leftovers, because the fridge is full, the booze is in the sliding pantry, the soda is under the settee, and the tip jar is at the link. As always, I thank those of you who donated to the cause. You are why I keep doing this.
Let’s start with this gem of an Idea https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/gm-restarts-driverless-car-program-more-than-year-after-cruise-robotaxi-incident Hey, don’t mistake me, if you could give me a “cruise control” that worked more like “autopilot” on my RV, for the long ass drives through western states on the interstate, where staying awake is the biggest challenge, I would love it. BUT the tech is not mature enough for prime time, and it’s for sure not mature enough for the average user to determine when it’s safe enough to turn that shit on, and when turning it on is liable to get you a Vehicular Manslaughter charge. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It’s like “flying cars”: even if we could build them and make them readily available, People fuck up driving in two dimensions constantly, do you really want to add the complexity of a third??? Further, the Dunning Kruger curve on driving is an absolute bitch. Unless you have formal training in high-speed operations and evasive driving, the likelihood that you’re a good driver is almost inversely proportionate to the likelihood that you THINK you’re a good driver. I’m not saying that all people without EVOC or similar training are bad drivers, but the odds that they are is much higher, and the odds that they think they’re better than they are? You can’t get odds like that in Vegas. The sad thing is though, that the Robot cars are even worse. Add in the poor judgement of when to turn that thing on, and you’re asking for trouble.
Right along side that is https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/11/apple-applies-for-patent-on-that-single-slab-of-glass-iphone/ The premise here is that they’re going to make a phone that is one big wrap around screen. Front, Back, Sides, Top and Bottom, all of it is display. Now first off, with that system, how do you carry the damn thing? No matter where you have pressure against it, it’s touch screen there… You think butt dials are a problem now? You’re liable to wind up with a $500,000 TEMU bill for agricultural tools, even though you live in NYC.
Then there’s the fact that everyone I know, at least everyone with the wisdom the Gods gave to a goose, uses an otter case or similar protective case. Because the one thing that is guaranteed with cell phones is that you’re going to drop the damn thing. And due to the butter side down principle, that sucker is going to land on a corner. If you don’t have a protective case, you now have a spiderweb where your display used to be. How do you put a protective case around a thing that is all display? Nope, get thee behind me, Loki.
Remember a few weeks ago, we talked about the Firm “Crowds on Demand”? Well they’re back in the news, it seems that with Trump putting the shitshow that is D.C. back under federal control, Adam Swart, CEO of crowd rental firm Crowds on Demand, said requests for demonstrators in Washington are up 400% from last year and that the vast majority of attendees at political events are paid or participating as part of their work duties. (Sourced from “the Flyover, Wednesday 13 Aug.” Which in turn sourced from the link provided.
Look, if the dude that owns Crowds on Demand is to be believed, and I see no reason to doubt him, all of the riots, protests, and bullshit against heightened Law Enforcement by Federal Officers in DC is Astro Turf shit. It’s fake outrage for hire. The Politicians on all sides know this. So who do you think this Kabuki Theater is aimed at? You in the back, yeah you, the kid with the Che’ shirt, who is the fake outrage aimed at?
Oh, “I have no idea.” You say. Dude, it’s aimed at you. You and every other gullible fool, and at all the Normies, and low information voters. The sheep that think “Gods, everyone in DC is protesting against this, it must be a bad thing, or the herds wouldn’t be running from it.”
The thing is, there are fewer and fewer people that are unaware of how bullshit most of these protests are. The guys on the side of the politicians or millionaires with political agendas (looking at you here Soros you Palpatine looking motherfucker) believe it, and use the crowds to justify their belief, but the opposition knows it’s AstroTurf, and more and more the guys on the fence are figuring it out. It’s becoming a joke for the average high information voter. Sadly we don’t have as many of those as we need. Still we have enough that the elections aren’t being turned around by this crap any longer. So it would be nice if we could just put the purveyors of Riots for Hire out of business. Loki, your trick isn’t working, try something new.
Of course, the people that haven’t gotten the news that “folks are wise to this game,” is the mainstream press. They’re still banging the “People are protesting” drum. It reminds me of “Trouble in River City” from the Music Man… Except that while the press is running around whispering “trouble, trouble, trouble” the people are pointing at him and laughing. Take this article ran by AP from my local fish wrapper: https://therogersvillereview-DC residents protest as WH says federal agents will be on patrol 24/7 that breathlessly reports “After law enforcement set up a vehicle checkpoint along the busy 14th Street Northwest corridor, hecklers shouted, “Go home, fascists” and “Get off our streets.” Some protesters stood at the intersection before the checkpoint and urged drivers to turn away from it.” You would think that there was genuine outrage in the residents’ hearts, if you didn’t know about Rent-a-Riot.
And you gotta know that AP is aware of Rent-a-Riot, but they still spent sixty column inches on this fake outrage. Primarily because they’re betting that Ma and Pa Kettle (look it up, kid) just have no clue how this is all really going down. The problem for them is that Ma and Pa found out about the internet. Just as an example, I can get glass fiber to my house! For $49 bucks a month, I can get 500 Mbps up and down. (Faster speeds available for reasonable rates) Just a clue, that’s four times as fast as I could get in what has basically become a bedroom community of SEATTLE. The genie is out of the bottle, and knowledge; independent of the gatekeepers and liars; is right there for the taking. The only skill that you have to develop is a good strong bull-shit filter.
That’s the one problem with the internet, the signal to noise ratio is horrible. Still I find that for the most part, rural folks are better at identifying bull-shit than the average city denizen. Maybe it’s because we see actual bull-shit, chicken-shit, horse-shit, and bat-shit on a daily basis, while city boys are dodging bum-shit and addict-shit on the sidewalk.
While we’re talking about “Good Ideas” the ramifications of Hillary and Obama’s visit by Loki are slowly showing up, like a rock you buried in the field that keeps coming back to the surface.
Matt Taibbi did his most damning piece on Russia-Gate yet, at
The conspirators were all “the smartest men in the room.” (Dunning-Kruger white curtesy phone, please.)
Look, one of the first rules you learn working for the Federal government at any level above basic first level wrench turner, and shit hauler, is: “If you want to preserve the evidence, use Email.” If you think someone is giving you an order that is at all Hinkey, ask them to send conformation of the order by email. If you think that something going down is illegal, send an email about it.
On the other hand, if what you want someone to do is “gray area” shit, if it might not be quite fully legal, you do NOT write it down, you don’t send a memo, and for Gods’ sake do not send an email.
WHY?
Because email is FOREVER. Good forensic IT guys can get emails that were completely whipped off your system, and even off the receiver’s system, if it went through the government servers at any point. This is why Hilary did all the business she could on her private email with her private server.
Unfortunately for her, while she wiped her server and then destroyed it with a hammer, her co-conspirators weren’t so paranoid. DNI James Clapper, former FBI head James Comey, former CIA head John Brennan, and then-NSA chief Michael Rogers, all communicated over Government gear. These are guys that really should know better, they were at the time, the heads of the various intelligence services of the US. They really should have known that anything on government servers will live forever. Yet they ordered people to falsify intelligence, to hide things that didn’t match the narrative that was pushed.
“Understand your concern. It is essential that we (CIA/NSA/FBI/ODNI) be on the same page. and are all supportive of the report — in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.’”
“More time is not negotiable, We may have to compromise on our “normal” modalities, since we must do this on such a compressed schedule.
This is one project that has to be a team sport.”
(Those are direct quotes from an email between Clapper and the other three.)
Now Rogers knew what he was doing, I think. He sent an email that basically brought the whole narrative into question and said, “my guys think this is some iffy shit, and we’re not comfortable endorsing it.” That was when Clapper sent the response saying, “Everyone has to be singing the same tune on this” With the implied “Your job depends on it!”
Look, read the whole piece, there’s a lot of damning information coming out on this, and there are certain things that “presidential immunity” will probably not cover. The Clinton Machine may have finally gotten called on their crimes. I’m not saying they’re crooked, but when 47 of your business associates or friends commit suicide or are killed by a mysterious never found stranger? Come on, Capone didn’t have a body count like that.
Finally before I wrap this up, we have the visit by Loki to Governor Newsom. Somehow Loki convinced our dear California leader that it would be okay to start the gun ban machinery by limiting guns to one purchase a month. When he lost a court case on the legality of it, he appealed. When he lost again, he appealed to the whole court, and the Ninth Circuit En Banc, just unanimously ruled against him, saying in effect, NO damn it, you really don’t get to throttle rights. Period. We don’t care who you are.
I expect that even this won’t sink in to a guy who believes, against all evidence, that he is “America’s favorite governor.”
So he’s no doubt going to appeal to SCOTUS, who will most likely just refuse to hear the case, thus making 9th circuit’s ruling the final word. That doesn’t seem to be the only little failing of understanding though, I was told today that it’s a part of the California constitution, that the division of districts is not allowed to be done by the senate, house, or governor, but must be instead performed by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. I checked on it, yes, it is a part of their constitution https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_20,_Transfer_Congressional_Redistricting_to_Commission_Initiative_(2010) it has been since the afore linked proposition passed. It’s interesting to note that a violation of rights established by the Cal. Const. is a crime, punishable by fines and jail time.
California is following in the path of other liberal strongholds like Chicago and NYC, where everyone gets to serve multiple terms, both in government and then in prison.
Oh, BTW, schedule change. When we were in WA, the rhythm of my week drove publication on Thursday, writing on Wednesday. Here in TN, it looks like the rhythm is a little different, so publication will be on Wednesday from here on out, until further notice.
QOTD: in the “found the racist” files: "They can't originally invent anything more than they ever were able to invent good music." —former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid on white people.
Ms. Reid, there’s a whole line of people outside your door that want to speak to you, I think the first one said his name was Mozart, the next one is a guy named Springstien…
Yours in Service,
William Lehman
I love that visualization of the GIF.
"On the other hand, if what you want someone to do is “gray area” shit, if it might not be quite fully legal, you do NOT write it down, you don’t send a memo, and for Gods’ sake do not send an email."
Problem is, one of the side effects of all that technology is that you get dependent on the tech to do your remembering for you. And every time we added something, from clay tablets on up, our innate capacity to remember has gone down.
Now with AI and cloud, we've poured all of our data into one big reservoir, and all someone has to do is poison that one source with false data, and no one may remember (or be able to retrieve the unpoisoned water).