Good morning from my Hunker-Bunker overlooking the Puget Sound from West Seattle. It is a cloudy morning and I am off for the next two days.

I’m just going to jump into this today, because the sooner I’m done here, the sooner I can get back to my coding project. Poe just got released this morning, and I’ve already plunked my $199 for an annual subscription to the new and improved coding model, and I can’t wait to take it out for a spin.

I just fed it 250 images like the one you see here and asked it to give me a list of the model and serial number along with the handwritten room number on the label. I asked it to fill out the ‘RoomLocation’, ‘ModelNumber’ and ‘SerialNumber’ fields in my database table. This would have taken me at least a couple of hours by hand, took the AI model four seconds and it was done.

Agents. If you are looking for the Next Big Thing™, like getting in on the ground floor of Microshaft back in 1979, let me give you this one word: Agents. There are middle and high school kids making thousands of dollars creating AI Agents that they will sell to large corporations to streamline operations. All without knowing one line of code…

Hot Pockets

Israel Planted Explosives in Pagers Sold to Hezbollah

Bwahahahahahahahaha! *snicker* *snicker* Guffaaaaaaaw! Chortle.

sorry, I couldn’t help it…

Small amounts of explosive were implanted in beepers that Hezbollah had ordered from a Taiwanese company, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

I’ve got to say, pager technology certainly has come a long ways since we were using them to contact our drug dealers back in the day. I can think of more than a few times when I wished I could leave a specific code on someone’s pager and mess their entire day up.

The Anticipation

The Fed’s biggest interest rate call in years happens Wednesday.

As it has been predicted for almost a year, the Fed is meeting today to finally start cutting interest rates, now that their stated goal for bringing down inflation has been met. Just in time for the 2020 presidential election. The big question is how much will they cut this month? A quarter of a percent? Or will they get a bit aggressive and go for one half of one percent to start? Either way, borrowing money at a cheaper rate will only grow the economy.

Lowered by 1/2 point!

The Pitfalls of Allowing Transplants into Your State

Washington hasn’t always been known for it’s Liberal Leanings. Even Seattle has been known to elect Republican leaders in the past. Even our Democrats were considered somewhat Conservative when compared to the rest of the country. But all that changed, thanks to Bill Gates and Steve Allen setting up Microshaft in the Seattle area and becoming a beacon for all the freaks from California and elsewhere to show up here bringing their bad habits and attitudes with them.

Including their bad driving habits.

No Shame in Their Game

J.D. Vance Says It Does Not Matter Whether ‘Rumors’ of Pet-Eating Migrants Are True

Donald Trump’s running mate says he is willing to “create stories” if they help call attention to the costs of lax immigration policies.

Vance reiterated that stance on Sunday, simultaneously suggesting the rumors might be true, since his constituents had shared them, and that it does not really matter, because the main point is that Americans are suffering as a result of those policies, even if that suffering does not actually include the loss of beloved pets callously consumed by hungry Haitians. Meanwhile, Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, was appearing on ABC, where he condemned the pet-eating migrant story as “a piece of garbage that was simply not true,” since “there’s no evidence of this at all.”

Bash got into a spat with Vance, who complained that she was determined to ignore the broader issue. Bash, by contrast, argued that Vance and Trump, by “making unsubstantiated claims” with “racist undertones,” were the ones who were making it difficult to have a rational conversation about “totally legitimate” concerns raised by the migrant influx.

It seems clear that neither Trump nor Vance is interested in a rational conversation. “With this rhetoric,” Bettina Makalintal noted on Eater last week, “the Republican party is picking from the most predictable xenophobic playbook and invoking time-worn fear mongering.” The idea that “immigrants ‘eat pets,'” she wrote, “is meant to signify their backwardness, danger, and inferiority, ” which “then justifies the Republican party’s efforts to curtail immigration.”

For politicians “perpetuating this false narrative,” Makalintal observed, “the truth has taken a back seat to the intended message: that immigrants are not ‘like us’ and therefore pose a threat to hard-won American lives.” Trump and Vance, she said, are implicitly drawing a contrast between “white ‘Americans’ with household pets like Fluffy and Fido as members of the family” and dark-skinned immigrants who are “trouncing on that which is held dear.”

Implicit racism aside, Vance is proving to be just as impervious to reality as the man he once condemned as a “total fraud” who was shockingly xenophobic, “reprehensible,” “a moral disaster,” and even possibly “America’s Hitler.” In crediting what he previously described as possibly false “rumors,” Vance told Bash, he was simply “talk[ing] about what people are telling me,” just as Trump said he was merely repeating what “people on television” had reported when they claimed “my dog was taken and used for food.”

It’s only a matter of time before the rhetoric becomes deadly

When it does become deadly, do you think that either Trump or Vance take responsibility for spreading lies? Well, they certainly haven’t yet:

Town At Center Of US Migrant Conspiracies Hit With 33 Bomb Threats

DeWine did not elaborate on how many threats came locally versus from abroad.

“Some of them are coming from one particular country,” he said.

The mostly white town in the American Midwest has seen a boom in population in recent years, fueled mostly by Haitian immigrants attracted by its economic revival, and new businesses happy to attract laborers.

Frustrations over the growing pains of the city — where some 10-15,000 Haitians have arrived, in a town that had fewer than 60,000 people in 2020 — have spiraled into a racist backlash amid a heated political campaign leading up to November’s presidential election.

Basically, before the Haitians showed up, Springfield was dying. Most of its population had left following an economic downturn a few years ago, and it has never really recovered. The arrival of the Haitian population was welcomed at the time by employers who were wanting to put them to work in their factories.

But the racist elements didn’t like the idea of a whitebread town suddenly becoming dark brown and they’ve begun to push back with the help of Donald Trump and JD Vance.

The staggering reach of Trump’s misinformation — not just on Haitian migrants

• A majority (52 percent) of Trump supporters say they believe the claim about Haitian migrants “abducting and eating pet dogs and cats.” Excluding those who are “not sure,” twice as many say it’s at least “probably true” as say it’s at least “probably false.” (There remains no real evidence for this claim. Officials have debunked it and linked it to threats, and Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday called it “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”)
• 43 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that “in some states it is legal to kill a baby after birth” — another claim Trump referenced at last week’s debate. In fact, slightly more said they believed this was true than disbelieved it. (It is false.)
• 28 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that “public schools are providing students with sex-change operations,” something Trump has recently suggested is happening but for which there is no evidence.
• 81 percent of Trump supporters say they believe Venezuela is “deliberately sending people from prisons and mental institutions” to the United States. (There is no evidence that Venezuela or any other country is doing this, and Trump has used bad data to support his claim.)

The claims about Haitian migrants, post-birth executions and sex changes at school are actually some of the least pervasive. But the other claims that Trump supporters believe are more about statistics than ridiculous assertions.

Pitching More Scams

Confused Trump struggles in ‘painful’ crypto interview and keeps trying to change topic

When asked why it’s so important for America to lead in crypto adoption, he replied: “It’s so important. It’s crypto. It’s AI. It’s so many other things. AI needs tremendous electrictiy capabilities beyond anything I ever heard.”

Trump pledged to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet” but found it hard to handle the concept, admitting he has to be taught by 18-year-old son Barron, who was supposed to speak but went missing.

“Barron knows so much about this,” said Trump. “Barron is a young guy. He’s got four wallets or something. I’m saying ‘explain this to me.’ He knows it so well. And Eric and Don. I have a lot of respect for them.”

Well, let’s go talk to Barron… Oh wait, he’s gone missing…?

Barron Trump ‘goes missing’ before first ever interview and gets mocked by Don Jr.

Barron, who has a top secret code name, was meant to chat to fellow ‘crypto bro’ Farokh Sarmad, a social media influencer and entrepreneur who has 3m followers on his @goodlife Instagram page.

He appeared to join the chat with his first X account, @BarronXSpaces, which has already gained 45,000 followers and seems to have been created just for the interview.

However, there was confusion when Barron’s time to speak came as he was gone, with host Farokh flapping around trying to get someone else to talk.

“Damn teenagers,” said Barron’s older brother Don Jr., who added: “I’m like the old boomer now. Grumpy old man with the beard.”

Are we sure that Barron really wanted to be involved in any of this shit? Or is this something that his dad and/or his half-siblings are trying to involve him in the campaign? I may be completely wrong on this — I am a fallible human being, after all — but it doesn’t appear he really wants to be involved in any of his father’s reindeer games. Judging by the body language anytime he’s around his father, I sense the feeling of reluctance around him.

When Mass Deportations Begin, We Should Start With Elon Musk

Elon Musk deletes post asking why Biden and Harris are not assassination targets

The idea that he considers assassination of any kind to be ‘hilarious’ is problematic enough.

An assassination attempt? Or just someone exercising their Second Amendment Rights?

Man who appeared intent on killing Trump wrote a book urging Iran to assassinate the ex-president

Routh wrote that he once voted for Trump and must take part of the blame for the “child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless.”

Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday after authorities say he stalked the GOP presidential nominee as he golfed in West Palm Beach, Florida, with an SKS-style rifle in an apparent assassination attempt thwarted by the Secret Service.

Through his voluminous online footprint, public records, news interviews and videos, a picture emerged of Routh as a man with a criminal past, plenty of outrage and views ranging from the left to the right, including support for Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Nikki Haley and Trump.

Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic primary in March.

Routh also made 19 small donations totaling $140 since 2019 through ActBlue, a political action committee that distributes donations to Democratic candidates, according to federal campaign finance records.

It sounds like this guy was all over the mental map, and didn’t really have his mind anchored firmly in reality. Definitely not someone who should be around firearms of any kind — not because of his criminal background, but because he’s not sewn together tight enough. I would be amazed if his attorney doesn’t go for a diminished capacity defense.

My snarky headline above questioning whether this guy was simply exercising his Constitutional rights to bear arms is actually an honest question. At what point does bearing arms cross the line and become an attempted assassination attempt? When does the line get crossed? And did Routh actually cross that line, or did he just get up to that line?

I’m asking, because he never fired his gun at anyone. I read that he didn’t have ammunition for the weapon — but I can’t find that article now. His backpacks had ceramic tiles in them — but no mention of any ammo.

Floriduh is a “Stand your Ground” state. They will let anyone who can fog a mirror own and bear firearms, and will often find ways to remove the responsibility of a shooter who can simply state that he feared for his life and well-being. The fact that this guy is not alleged to have fired even a single shot makes me question what laws he actually violated here, other than felon in possession of a firearm…

I just don’t see an actual charge of attempted murder by assassination to get past a Grand Jury, let alone past a trial Jury. Smart money would be for a bench trial for acquittal.

That’s if he doesn’t end up in a mental facility.

He’s dodging bullets, and she’s dodging interviews? A bit of truth there. A bit.

So far there was one bullet, and while we know Trump was bleeding right after the shot, there is no real proof that the bullet caused the bleeding — which opens up the door for America’s favorite pastime: speculation and conspiracy theories.

Did Trump get “shot”? No, he did not. He got extremely lucky, and if he hadn’t moved his head when he did, there is no doubt that the outcome would have been terrible.

Is Harris dodging interviews? “Dodging” or being “selective”? She’s the sitting VP, running for president. She is currently in a statistically even race and is on the campaign trail filling large venues and tossing out campaign rhetoric promising the moon and the stars. Whatever interview she grants will be sure to be a “get” by the interviewer. So far, it seems that it is a campaign style that is showing positive results. Whether it will be enough to prevail in November is left to be seen.