In Memory of Dickie Betts

It looks to me like L-loon Musk continues his intellectual thievery.

I am referring to the fact that Musk has named his new chatbot Grok. The word Grok is an integral part of Robert Heinlein's most controversial sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. When I was in high school we all clandestinely read it because of it's sexual content (the original uncensored version wasn't published until the early 80s).

To Grok is to have deep existential understanding. It means, to have clear insight. It is a metaphysical idea.

Heinlein, like Verne, Clark, and Asimov, had that insight and predicted things such as the coming of the computer age and sentient AI beings. Heinlein was a graduate of the Naval Academy, an aeronautical engineer, author, and as Asimov called him, "a flaming liberal". In Stranger, he forecasts the coming of religious nuttery in the form of the Fostorites, something akin to the prosperity preachers. He even foresaw massive global pollution and climate change.

If you are a hardcore fan of Heinlein and his writings such as myself, you know him as a man that believed in integrity, duty, honor, country, sacrifice, and the power of hope and love. In short, he would be appalled at the point we have arrived at in our nation and world. Musk stands for everything that Heinlein detested. He would absolutely never have allowed Musk to appropriate the term Grok. It is a word that has meaning that Musk can not begin to Grok. I do hope that the Heinlein estate is equally appalled. I can't believe that they would give Musk permission to use the word. I hope they drag Musk into court and force him to cease and desist. I guess we will have to wait and see.

End of rant.

There was no polio vaccine in 1952. Paul Alexander had no choice in the matter.

Refusing vaccination may be a choice, but it is a stupid choice.

I find the thought of unnecessarily exposing children to the possibility of 70 years in an iron lung horrifiying. Will the summer of '24 be the start of another polio epidemic? Make no mistake - it is coming to a home near you.

Something else you can thank Trump for.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/paul-alexander-texas-man-who-lived-most-of-his-life-in-an-iron-lung-dies-at-78/ar-BB1jPyAp

Update on my earlier post on the origins of Trump's bond.

In short there was nothing normal about trump's bond. As it happens, the CEO of the Chubb Group, home of Federal Insurance Company, is one self made nepo baby by the name of Evan Greenberg. In 1918 Trump appointed Greenberg to the White House Advisory Committee for trade policy and negotiations. So Trump called in a chit. No due diligence. Possibly no actual collateral. The way I see it, Trump is on the hook for another favor.

The SOB is massively compromised. He can't be allowed confidential intelligence briefings.

Me thinks something absolutely stinks!

Earlier today AverageOldGuy posted the idea that possibly Russian money was behind Trump's bond.

There was a great deal of push back on the idea. I felt that both sides of the argument had merit. I posted a reply which became fairly lengthy. I decided to repost that reply here in order to stimulate further discussion.

Trump claims to be a multi-billionaire. He claims he has significant cash on hand (Habba Babba said 500M). When you and I say we have cash, we usually mean folding money or a bank account. When wealthy people say cash, they don't mean that they have money stashed under the mattress. What they really mean is that they have liquid assets. That means they have unencumbered funds parked in some sort of interest bearing situation that they can access and move around on very short notice. They don't have to sell or mortgage a property (or their private jet) to free up assets.

To satisfy the court, Trump in some way had to pledge $91M before he could make an appeal. That money has to be unencumbered, so that if the appeal fails, the court can disburse the full amount to the E. Jean Carrol immediately. Trump did not put up his own money. Instead, he got Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chubb Group LLC, to provide the court with a $91M bond. In this situation, the bond is like a loan. I have no reason to believe that F.I.C. would put up the money on more favorable terms than Honest Abe's House of Bonds. That means a 20% fee up front to obtain the bond. In this case that's about $18M. If you have liquid cash somewhere, why would you get a bond? Unless you are a loan shark, your cash is going to be earning significantly less than 20%. So you sacrifice your earned interest and use your own money. That's just simple math. Trump used a bond which must mean he doesn't have the cash.

The big question I have is, why would any legitimate company put up any size bond for Trump? What could induce a loan officer or loan committee to cover Trump?

Before Honest Abe or F.I.C. is going to put up a bond, they are going to want collateral to cover their money. Trump would have had to pledge a property with a least $91M in equity. They would also have to look at his financial statements. Oops! We already know he has been adjudicated a fraudster. You can't believe anything Trump tells you. How would you really know if his collateral had $91M in equity? It is difficult for me to see how F.I.C. could do their necessary due diligence in such a short time to assure themselves that their bond is covered.

If Trump's appeal fails, he must pay Carroll immediately. If he refuses or can't pay, then the court orders F.I.C. to transfer the funds to Carroll. Now Trump has to pay F.I.C. or they seize the collateral. They sell off the collateral. This is where the rubber meets the road. If the property is already encumbered by previous loans or pledges (which surely have numerous attached covenants), those encumbrance holders have first call on the proceeds. After all of those debts are covered, then F.I.C. gets it's money. There is no guarantee that there will be $91M left. Also, this will surely spawn numerous law suits. F.I.C. could find itself fighting with numerous other debt holders.

Now add to all that the fact that Trump owes roughly $500M on his fraud judgement. There is no way he has that kind of cash available. If he wants to appeal, there will have to be another bond. If F.I.C. or any other organization puts up a bond, you can definitely assume something is rotten in Denmark. As soon as the judgement grace period ends and Trump can't pay, James is going to attach everything Trump owns in New York. No matter what, the Carroll appeal will still be going on when James starts grabbing assets. Now it's a fire sale. Trump's Carroll collateral could seriously crash in value. Law suits are going to fall like rain. F.I.C. has people way smarter than me in financial matters. They would have had to take all of this into consideration. F.I.C. stands a good chance of getting burned.

Which brings me back to my original question, why would any "legitimate" company working under normal banking practices put up the bond? Me thinks something really is rotten in Denmark or Gotham.

I just had a very loud discussion with my son. It was very disconcerting.

According to him, the U.S. economy is terrible, on the verge of a major collapse. Under Trump things were great beyond belief (notice my Trumpian take). Full disclosure, he is working in a commodities related industry and is earning far more than he has ever made in his life. Demand for his companies products are down, prices are down and he is worried about layoffs. I tried to explain that that is the curse of commodities. When they are hot they are hot and when they are not they are not. It's all Joe Biden's fault. The true genius of right wing media is the ability to tie every individual's personal bad outcome to Biden and a promise that Trump will make things all more wonderful than anyone has ever seen before.

I quickly rattled off a dozen statistics showing the excellent condition of the economy. His comeback is, that's not true. I'm being lied to. I am a retired engineer and I think I know how to read and analyze numbers, but he thinks I'm too stupid to tell the difference between fact and fiction. In our town McDonalds, Dairy Queen and the local lumber yard are begging for help at $20 an hour. That's a fact. You all are familiar with the rest of the numbers and I won't go on.

Oh, and BTW, Trump is the peace candidate. WTF?

I do not understand why a person that I know to be of above average intelligence can be so easily led around by right wing nonsense. All I can do is shake my head and hope he comes to his senses sometime soon. I do my best to avoid these loud conversations but it always deteriorates into a shouting match.

Harry is dumbfounded by the "arrogant" ruling by the AL supreme court regarding gametes.

I really don't understand why he should be surprised. The judges consulted their bibles (even the dissenting judge) and divined that the lord high holy omniscient and omnipotent master of the universe has declared that two cells united as one, i.e. gamete, are in fact a human being with all rights, titles, and privileges thereof. Case closed! Bow down you females. You may be humans, but we (the court) have determined that you are not citizens like us men. Rather you are brood mares under the supervision of the benevolent state of Alabama. What's for dinner hon?

I just watched a Meidas Touch video of TSF's Michigan rally last night.

The TSF is wearing black leather gloves. What is that all about? Are his tiny fingers cold? Have his hands broken out in some kind of sores? I've never seen him with gloves. Does anyone have any thoughts on what is up here?

Thanks for the hearts!

Last night I was in the kitchen listening to music video when I hear Trump's voice

(I'm guessing it was a popup of one of his stream of consciousness videos) and I hearing him say something to the effect that; there is going to be an big attack (I think he implied violence) on the country, and it is going to be very bad. He was in full creepy voice mode and it sounded very sinister. By the time I got to my screen the video was gone so I didn't see where this came from.

Did anyone else out there hear this video?

It sounded like a straight up threat. I immediately had visions of a Reichstag fire scenario. Something bad happens and the Rs will heap all of the blame on Biden.