Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients

In case you missed this important ceremony, here is a list of those awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joseph Biden, Jr. on Jan. 4, 2025.

 

Jose Andres, Spanish chef and philanthropist

Bono, Irish vocalist

Ashton Baldwin Carter, deceased US Defense Secretary

Hillary Rodham Clinton, American wife of former US President 

Michael J. Fox, American actor

Tim Gill, Denver gay computer entrepreneur

Jane Goodall, British primatologist

Fannie Lou Hamer, deceased American civil rights activist

Earvin Johnson, American professional basketball player

Robert F. Kennedy, deceased American politician and government official

Ralph Lauren, American clothing designer 

Lionel Messi, Argentine professional footballer

Bill Nye, American television personality

George W. Romney, deceased American politician

David M. Rubinstein, American founder of the Carlyle Group and one of the owners of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team

George Soros, Hungarian born currency speculator

George Stevens, Jr., American television and film director

Denzel Washington, American movie actor

Anna Wintour, British-American magazine editor and executive 

President Biden was himself awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then President Barak Obama on 12 Jan., 2017.  

 

 

German Bicycles Go Here

A DW piece from 2021 describes the travels of stolen bicycles from Germany to Ukraine.  According to the Federal Criminal Police Office, the thefts of more than 260,000 bicycles, with a total value of almost €200 million ($236 million), were registered in Germany last year. 

 

autoevolution.com 

Executive Orders

What's so "democratic" about an executive order? Apparently the mechanism of an executive order doesn't have any restrictions on its use. Is there anything that can't be done by a president's, or perhaps his entourage's, whim? When the convoluted process of selecting the senior administrative official in the US is completed, is that individual able to commit any amount of US funds to whatever project takes his fancy?

The current US president, who is only going to be around for a few more days, has, by executive order, demanded that federal property be made available to corporations involved in the development and use of artificial intelligence and marked $30 billion in  greenbacks to help them along.

 gregoryconstruction.com

While the immense internet filing systems called "data centers" have yet to prove their worth in any but the most mundane ways, those expected to finance their construction are supposed to shut up and pay.

Just as "virtual reality" is only an imitation of reality, artificial intelligence is imitation intelligence also. If it were real intelligence with value it could be asked "What's the answer to the Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 problem?" and after a few flashes of light and beeps a correct, unchallengeable answer would pop up on a data center screen and shortly thereafter on the on-line site of the New York Post. That's what a genuine but impossible artificial intelligence program would be able to do. 

Instead, a small but influential group of Whigs has used its influence to gather tax payer cash to build factories that can only reproduce the thoughts of the past, but perhaps in a different sequence. According to these entrepreneurs and their government allies, this data must be assembled and analyzed so the hordes of Chinese won't have the exclusive use of the technology and use it to spread their tyranny to the western hemisphere. It must be completely developed for defense purposes. It's also the case that these neo-Whigs will become very wealthy.

The failure of the Soviet Union was generally thought to have been caused by its attempts to match the developing military capabilities of the US which were so expensive that the Russians were basically bankrupted. It seems unlikely that a profusion of useless AI data centers will accomplish the same result with China.

In the case of the Soviets, the enormous expenses of the Cold War were at least visible flying around US air bases and sailing in and out of port. The data centers will produce only pixels arranged in different configurations on solid state hard drives. Hardly as impressive as an F-15 Strike Eagle or a Minute Man missile.

As usual when government is concerned, secrecy will be paramount. If the AI machine says tomorrow is the optimum date to shoot an ICBM at the Norks or even the Chinese, will the AI's advice absolve those who pulled the trigger? Will we be informed before or after? Or, will the AI make the ultimate decision itself?    

NASA Whig PR

If discovering planets that have been around for billions of years is the routine, NASA will also be a presence for some time. Of course, that's the colonialist version of discovery, like that of Christopher Columbus, finding something that wasn't known to a particular society or individual is a "discovery" for them. They were unaware of it but now know of it. It's been "discovered". 

In this case the discovery is a big planet, at least in the view of NASA, with a surrounding atmosphere that contains methane, thought to be present only in an environment that includes life.

This is another benefit of the fabulous James Webb Space Telescope, discovering more interesting planets.

"But even if life is not confirmed, the implications remain extraordinary. This discovery demonstrates the capabilities of human ingenuity and the relentless drive to push boundaries. It proves that, as a species, we are capable of asking bold questions and seeking answers in the vast unknown. In many ways, the search for life beyond Earth is also a search for meaning".

Yeah, OK. A search for meaning. Meaning for most people is insuring enough food is on the table. The relentless drive to push boundaries is a search for the benefit of meaning even if no life is found in the perhaps infinite reaches of the cosmos. We wouldn't want to be some cosmic flotsam on the shore of the galaxy. That wouldn't have meaning. Astronomy is a religion. 

The Seed Corn Of Artificial Intelligence

As it's currently understood, the information that AI will file, analyze and use to make decisions will be scoured from the internet. The verbal ideas and opinions of Cambodian farmers, Canadian truck drivers and Colombian cocaine traffickers won't be grist for the AI mill. Probably the material most desired for data center storage will be gleaned from things like this, containing ample statistics that can't be verified as guidance for future activity.

In fact, the only purpose for extensive files of any information is to guide later decision making. Gibbon's studies of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire were meant not just for amusement but also to point out the failures of that nation perhaps in the hope that they wouldn't be repeated. Judicial records of a person's behavior can determine his entire future. Before today the positive or negative effect of decisions made to achieve a certain outcome had to be measured against the information used to make those decisions. In the future, the total information that AI uses to make choices will be too complex for human analysis. AI systems will need to be used to validate the findings of previous efforts in a never-ending loop. 

Evidently an AI conclusion, should one be reached, will supersede that of any lowly human or all this investment is in vain. Thus if AI says drop the bomb on the Kremlin, that will be the thing to do. No level of "natural intelligence" will be sufficient to negate the AI findings. Who will have access to this AI "opinion" is another question.

Man may be capable of doing many things but considerations must be taken into account. The findings of AI, whatever they may be, are incredibly expensive. Giant data centers, filled with esoteric semi-conductors, filing and rearranging information, are using humongous quantities of power that's already putting a strain on the national electrical grid. What's more important, a town washing its clothes and microwaving its Eggos or a data center making an informational omelet? This isn't a new issue. The Amish made their choice many years ago.

 

                                                                                 tripsavvy.com

In the Jan 4-5 issue of the Wall Street Journal Ben Cohen describes the work of ASML engineer Breanna Hall who looks after an Extreme Ultraviolet Light lithography machine in the Boise, Idaho fab of Micron Technology. He describes it as "the most indispensable machine in the world." This is because the semiconductor chips it manufactures are used in so many high tech products, appliances, electronics equipment, automobiles, etc. The new EUV chips are simply extremely small versions of earlier semiconductors. The fact is that most of the products that now contain semiconductors existed before they became available and the world got along fairly well. A new ultraviolet lithography machine costs as much as $370 million. There might be an increase in productivity in the use of this machine but productivity is figured in dollars and hours. Is that all there is in life? If the EUV machines disappeared from the face of the earth corn would still grow, cows would continue to produce milk, crude oil would still be pumped from the depths.

It could be the case that drivers need and want "value added" features in automobiles like GPS systems or self-driving capabilities but for well over one hundred years they puttered from point A to point B without sophisticated and unrepairable components that now make up most of the cost of a car. Isn't there a point where advancing technology simply isn't worth the price?

 

earthtrekkers.com

Moderns have always wondered about the construction of incredible projects of the past, the pyramids of Egypt and the similar structures of MesoAmerica, the fantastic amount of labor and engineering that went into what now seems to be a waste. How could it have been possible to coerce people into devoting so much energy into what must have seemed very important to someone else? The AI data centers may inspire similar questions from future humans, should they come to exist.        

Mass Shootings

 

Whenever there are multiple deaths caused by a psycho with a gun there are speculations as to why this would have occurred. What was the motive?

The reality is that US culture, past and present, is permeated with violence. The most popular team sport in the country is supposedly NFL football, whose schedule on Sunday afternoons changed that of church services to Sunday mornings exclusively. Now the NFL practices its trade on at least 3 different days each week. One of the foremost attractions of the professional model and lesser examples is the physical violence involved. This begins in high school and earlier where a significant percentage of growing boys suffer injuries that will plague them for the rest of their lives. As has been pointed out by others, if high school football was a disease, billions would be spent in search of a cure. The same is true of other team sports. 

Many American motion pictures and television productions contain strong elements of violence, particularly gun fire. Cinematic soft-core sex is considered pornography. Murder is entertainment.

Video games allow the player to fire at and kill computer creations, satisfying an urge forbidden in reality.

If this is a sad state of affairs that leads weaker souls to mayhem, does it have a solution? Probably not. Maybe we’ll have to accept that humans are somewhat more intelligent than monkeys, even more violent, and actually enjoy it as long as it doesn’t affect them and those that they love.

US Officially A Third-World Kleptocracy

The Wall Street Journal has seen fit to publish a letter they received from a Washington, D.C. attorney describing his experience sending through the USPS a check for a substantial amount of money to the District of Columbia taxing authority. The check was stolen, altered, and cashed at his own bank. After dealing with government officials, law enforcement, and his bank for months the bank reluctantly returned his funds. Although the identity of the thief is known, the D.C. Metropolitan Police have yet to make an arrest.

Utility companies and internet service providers handle billing and receipts through businesses. One is listed only by post office box numbers at Carol Stream, Illinois, in DuPage County. Felony Center Chicago is well known for crime of every description. A payment sent through the mail is easily identified by a thief simply through the address. USPS employees are very much aware of this. The real problem seems to be banks accepting altered checks.

But the issue is, in a way, bigger than monetary theft. A collateral and contributing phenomenon is election fraud. If it's unsafe to send money through the mails  how can the integrity of mail-in electoral ballots be assured? Evidently it can't be. Ballots in the mail can be easily determined, just as payments made to a Carol Stream, Illinois, post office box. If a stolen check can be easily cashed how hard would it be to cast a fake ballot?

Among the many problems of the USPS, electrification of their truck fleet, employee retention, email antiquating first class service, etc., now added is brazen and ignored theft. The US tries to tell third world nations how to operate when it can't manage its own affairs.