Usually always, a slow-motion disaster

 

"This Hurricane Isaias which is now on land and churning towards the East Coast, is a perfect example of how much in advance these monster storms warn us. In other words, they 'telegraph their punches' a long time before they hit shore."

I have told this story before. As a young lad, fresh into the Navy, I was in my first hurricane - and it was a doozy. Hurricane Camille in 1969 hit the Gulf Coast, and I had just arrived in Pensacola for "A" School. As a veteran of many Minnesota thunderstorms and a couple of tornados, the Cat 5 monster storm gave me the "pucker factor". But I will say this - it took days for this storm, churning and turning in the Gulf, to decide which patch of land it was going to make landfall on. Unlike Minnesota thunderstorms which could pop up out of nowhere, Camille took just about forever to make landfall.

Years ago, I heard a national weather guy refer to hurricanes and typhoons as "slow motion disasters". After my experience with Camille, I could not agree more. Many other natural disasters give you very little warning. Earthquakes, flash floods, volcanos, tornados, and forest fires can come on very quickly. At least with a hurricane (even like with Hurricane Isaias) there was quite a bit of prep time. Or - evacuation time. 

This Hurricane Isaias which is now on land and churning towards the East Coast, is a perfect example of how much in advance these monster storms warn us. In other words, they "telegraph their punches" a long time before they hit shore. I was in a couple of minor typhoons while serving in the Western Pacific and it was the same. Although I will say this - after going through Camille, those puny typhoons were almost laughable. No worse than Minnesota thunderstorms in my opinion.

Today the storm has left the Gulf Coast and has turned into a real rain maker further inland. The task of clean-up is now in order. Compared to some recent storms which have visited Florida recently, this one was weaker, and not as serious. Most houses came through just fine, as the building codes in Florida have changed over the years to build more robust and durable homes. That makes perfectly good sense to me. 

But now in the northland, we are closing in on the halfway point in October, and the thoughts of snow, ice and cold are starting to flood our thoughts of the upcoming winter. Our winter storms are really a pain, but are nothing compared to other natural disasters. Winter in Minnesota is just long, gray, and cold. I have tried many times to come up with a positive attitude about spending six months in a freezer but keep coming up short. Where would I rather be in the winter? Florida. Storms and all, I would take Florida any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

  

Buying a home? Maybe hopeless, helpless, and homeless

"I don't know what the solution is. I really don't. Maybe tiny homes? If somebody would like to live in one. Or maybe generational homes. I ran that one by our oldest daughter and the silence was deafening. Until we figure out a solution to this most vexing problem, buying a house for many is like taking a train to nowhere." 

Ever wonder why home ownership for many these days is now like being stuck in the mud? Is it the rising interest rates or is it something else? When we built this house almost 42 years ago, we were stuck with a sky-high ARM rate, just to get in the game. All I wanted every time I made a payment, was for the interest rates to go down far enough so I could refinance and get a fixed 8% rate. And they did, and we got our 8% rate.

But today, the interest rates are less than 8%. Here is my theory - and I am sticking with it. We had just finished a kitchen remodel when Covid was in full stride. Yes, we did get caught up in the supply chain issues. In fact, we still don't have our front entry way closet doors done. But not only were things scarcer, but the new costs on these items were much, much higher. I did not give it much thought back then - I just wanted our job finished up.

Then I got our new annual bill for homeowners' insurance. I was a heck of a lot higher than the previous year. When I called our insurance company to get it straightened out, they informed me it was not in error. That the cost to replace our house went up quite a bit. Here is the rub. It is not the interest rates, although lower rates could help home buyers. It is the enormous cost to build a house. The past year, we have had three houses sell in our neighborhood. Each sold for over $500,000. And we live in a modest neighborhood. No McMansions here!

We have millions of people nationwide who would like to get into a house - any house - and can't. They are stuck. The old Oren Thompson starter homes are just not being built anymore. Plus, with the new standards and rules for construction, all those costs are sunk right into the finished product. We have homes sitting waiting for a buyer to qualify, and the people trying to sell them are not going anyplace. Everybody is stuck.

I don't know what the solution is. I really don't. Maybe tiny homes? If somebody would like to live in one. Or maybe generational homes. I ran that one by our oldest daughter and the silence was deafening. Until we figure out a solution to this most vexing problem, buying a house for many is like taking a train to nowhere. 

Is the Mall of America a soft target for the bad guys?

"Be it a Somali or somebody else, the MOA remains a huge soft target in Minnesota. Every time my daughter wants to take our grandies to the MOA, I always give her a warning. Not safe. Keep your head on a swivel. These are dangerous times. We are not as immune to the world's wars coming to our shores as we once were."  

It is now, or at least has been in the past, the largest shopping mall in America. It has been the location of feral youth incidents many times. Why? It is like a magnet for trouble. And because of its size, providing protection against people who would do it harm is a concern. Truthfully, I have worried about this for years. It is way, way too tempting for bad actors who would like to make some kind of a statement.

Yesterday, it was reported that some young Somali, who had been radicalized and wanted to join ISIS, was going to do great harm to our MOA. A Somali? Just like the group behind most of the fraud in Minnesota, and the group behind this new rash of gang violence in the southern burbs, now is behind of one of the most serious terror threats in our recent history.

The news has reported it this way. For two years now, the FBI has had eyes on this young man. Since he was 16. He wanted to make a statement which would be a national splash. Like buying an AR-15 with ammo, going to the MOA when there was a huge Hmong event, and then killing between 30 to 60 innocent people. Plus (this is antidotal as I heard it on another source), he thought the MOA was owned by Jewish folks, so that made it all the better.

This is not going over well with the social media posts I have seen today and yesterday. Seems the folks on the left have lost their voice over this one. And the folks on the right? They are in an uproar. Is it possible that this group is just not fitting in well here? They don't like our laws (Sharia would be better, thank you), they don't like our religion, and they don't want to fit in with the rest of us. Plus, our climate is NOTHING like where they are from. Then why stay here?

Be it a Somali or somebody else, the MOA remains a huge soft target in Minnesota. Every time my daughter wants to take our grandies to the MOA, I always give her a warning. Not safe. Keep your head on a swivel. These are dangerous times. We are not as immune to the world's wars coming to our shores as we once were.  

  

Will AI become a fixture in Hollywood?

"I guess a few years ago the SAG folks knew more about what was coming than the rest of us did. I have recently read that AI will put almost 50% of the current types of jobs out of business. Little did I think that actors might be one of those jobs. But hey - with or without real actors, the show must go on. And it will." 

I remember when the last strike was held by the SAG (Screen Actors Guild). One of the big sticking points (which I don't think ever got resolved) was how to keep AI out of their business. I found it somewhat laughable, as what type of future shock were they talking about? I could not imagine what a film, be it long or short, could look anywhere near real just using bits and bytes from some computer. I was wrong.

AI is not yet in Hollywood, but it sure is being tampered with by AI pros outside the movie industry. On YouTube recently, there is a plethora of different AI "shorts", some just okay, and others are jaw dropping good. So good, you need to pinch yourself to believe it is only AI, and not a real movie. But why go there? Don't we have enough entertainment coming out of Hollywood these days? Why add in some artificial stuff?

Recently I read about a movie which will soon be released on Netflix. It is called Catacombs, and up until recently, it was deemed to be "unmakeable". There the script sat, gathering dust. Then an AI developer came along and offered to take a stab at it. Using 3,300 AI generations and about 250 hours of labor, this one person made Catacombs into a movie. No actors. No sets to build. No special effects. Just a movie, with a plot, and fake actors that when they died, their AI avatars really died. 

Watching some of the short offerings on YouTube, I am amazed and fascinated by the amount of finite detail that AI will put into scenes. That is part of the reason that everything looks and acts so real. Even the movements of people, their facial movements, leave nothing to chance. Everything looks dead on real. Then I had this thought - if this is how AI looks in 2026, how will it look in 2030? Will this signal unemployment for thousands of actors? No more expensive screen sets? No more special effects? No more stunt doubles? 

I guess a few years ago the SAG folks knew more about what was coming than the rest of us did. I have recently read that AI will put almost 50% of the current types of jobs out of business. Little did I think that actors might be one of those jobs. But hey - with or without real actors, the show must go on. And it will. 

Speed of light, baby!

"Someday, maybe someday, we will find out to use worm holes, portals, or warp drive. Until that time comes however, even the thought of traveling even 10% of the speed of light, remains just that - a thought. Maybe the Fermi Paradox is more than just a fancy term - maybe it is true." 

When I worked at IBM, we had an inside joke about any system that we were working on that was slow. At least one person would say with a wink and a nod, "That is what I like about working at IBM - everything should operate at the speed of light!" That is a true statement. By definition, the speed of a circuit should be as fast as the speed of light - that is, by definition. In reality, it never happens. That being said, NASA is still occupied with the idea of space travel that is at least a fraction of the speed of light. 

NASA would love, love, love to have some kind of propulsion that would obtain 10% of the speed of light. Even 5% would be grand. But 10%? Ready for this one? That would be 67 million miles per hour! Considering our fastest rocket in our inventory can obtain a speed of 430,000 mph, that is like standing still compared to a rocket which can travel at 67 million mph!

If we only had rocket travel that was 10% of the speed of light, we could make it to Mars in a jiffy, and getting to the Moon would be a blip. And then we could get outside our Solar System and visit our closest star - the Alpha Centauri system. Really? Could we? The Alpha Centauri system is about four light years away. Just a walk in the park compared to most distances in the universe. But hold on - even if we could travel at 10% of the speed of light, traveling four light years would take us forty years just to get to Alpha Centauri. Forty years there, forty years back. Now we are almost talking about using a generational ship to get there.

I guess that leaves the idea of visiting the Andromeda Galaxy out of the question. Why? As close as it is to us, it is still over 2,000,000 light years away. Even if we were able to travel at the speed of light, getting to Andromeda would be a non-starter. What does that really mean? Right now, with a top speed of a rocket being 430,000, getting to Mars will take months. Getting to our Moon will take a day. Anything else outside our Solar System, is out of the question. If we really want to see what traveling to the stars is like, turn on an episode of Star Trek.

Someday, maybe someday, we will find out to use worm holes, portals, or warp drive. Until that time comes however, even the thought of traveling even 10% of the speed of light, remains just that - a thought. Maybe the Fermi Paradox is more than just a fancy term - maybe it is true. Maybe the UFOs people have been seeing are more interdimensional than interstellar. Maybe - but if interdimensional travel is real, that would be the subject of another article. Until then, I am good with just being in our neighborhood.   

What is Tundra Merlin?

 

"For those who have visited Alaska know this much - it is beautiful country, but also rugged and unforgiving. To be stationed in the Northern Command takes a special kind of ruggedness. But be it land, sea or air, guarding our arctic frontier is very, very important. With some of the melting of the arctic ice cap, more northern sea lanes are open to bad actors like Russia and China. We need to make sure we have them in check."

It may look like Canada and the US are having a spat right now, but that disturbance in the force is mainly in trade issues. As far as the common defense of North America is concerned, the Canadian Forces and US forces are still locked together tighter than a drum. How so? There is a training exercise, which goes beyond training and has become a standard defense program called Tundra Merlin. An odd name for not so odd of a reality. This is our northern command, holding up an Aegis type of shield, against all enemies foreign and domestic who try to exploit our arctic door to the northland.

How serious is this threat? As serious as serious gets. One of the main reasons why Donald Trump was trying to tie up the addition of Greenland into our Arctic shield. With the help of Canada, we want the Arctic doormat, from Alaska, through the northern part of Canada, and then over to Greenland, secure. How important is it? Of the utmost importance. And now that the agreement is signed with Greenland, our common security is even more secure.

What really is this Tundra Merlin? It is an exercise which never stops. It is the Canadian and US forces "watchmen' being vigilant 24 X 7 x 365. And our Northern Command has said more than once that we stand ready to "flex" our commitment to that region depending on the nature of the threat. What does that mean? Not only can our forces stand guard in the Indo-Pacific, support our military action in Iran, battle the cartels in Mexico, and back up NATO in Europe - we can also guard our joint arctic region with Canada. And if we need to flex more troops to support Tundra Merlin - we can do it quickly.

For those who have visited Alaska know this much - it is beautiful country, but also rugged and unforgiving. To be stationed in the Northern Command takes a special kind of ruggedness. But be it land, sea or air, guarding our arctic frontier is very, very important. With some of the melting of the arctic ice cap, more northern sea lanes are open to bad actors like Russia and China. We need to make sure we have them in check.

I suspect as time goes on, there will be more and more information shared about what is going on in our new and expanding arctic frontier. But knowing that Canadian Forces, along with US Force are protecting us up there, none of us need to sleep with one eye open. And once our Golden Dome is finished, we will be even safer.  

 

Is October going to be a new adventure, or just another surprise?

"Trump can finish the job if he can maintain the House and Senate. Or, if we lose the House and Senate, NOTHING will get done. It will be just like having two more years of Joe Biden. But to the Minnesota Morons, that is just fine, thank you."    

Here we are in November - headed straight into the midterms next month. Recently, I have seen more people post on social media the raw unvarnished truth about next month's midterms. There is not some black and heinous cloud hanging over our heads, which spells out gloom and doom for the next two years. Not a bit. But could it happen? Sure could. But we are in control of our future. Not the clown car of wanna be legislatures that the Democrats are offering up this year. And not karma. And not history. It is us. If Republicans and Christians vote in the numbers they should be voting, it will be a landslide win for the red team. If, however, the bedwetters and the pouters have their way this time around, we will lose and probably lose big. 

What Donald Trump has done the first two years of his second term has been nothing less than amazing. I could take up the rest of this post by listing just some of the things which he has done, but those in the know already are aware of them, and those who despise Trump don't even give him credit for breathing air.

Minnesota should not be a jump ball for whom will govern next year. After the world record fraud by the Somali community, the blind eye and deaf ear by the Democrats who should have been fighting such fraud, and the growing lawlessness in the Cedar Riverside part of the metro, ANY Republican running for anything should be a shoe in. But then we need to address the cancer in this town every election year. The Minnesota Morons - aka the Minnesota voters. Every two years, they insist on voting for the arsonists who set the fires. I look at the Democrat slate of candidates and all I can say is the old Reagan phrase - "There they go again".

The old saying goes that people get the government they deserve. Do we really deserve the government that gave us the trifecta in 2023? The infanticide type of abortion laws? Pissing away a HUGE surplus on NOTHING? The Minnesota Morons got what they deserved, but the normal people did not. And what do the normal people want this time around? To clean house. Get rid of the fraudsters and their apologists. Minnesota is not only a mess right now, but also a laughingstock to the rest of the country. We could fix this - all we need do is vote.

Trump can finish the job if he can maintain the House and Senate. Or, if we lose the House and Senate, NOTHING will get done. It will be just like having two more years of Joe Biden. But to the Minnesota Morons, that is just fine, thank you.