Quotes…

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. [Arthur Schopenhauer]

Even the smallest things ought to be directed toward a goal. [Marcus Aurelius]

When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. [John Muir]

I got nothin’ against mankind. It’s people I can’t stand. [Archie Bunker]

Carry On: Verbal order which means, resume doing nothing. [Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Marion F. Sturkey]

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to lying! [Falstaff, in Shakespeare’s Henry IV]

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. [Clarence Darrow]

If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic. [Aaron Zelman]

Remember that the people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law and the people that took her to the camps were enforcing it. [Your conscience]

The weak grow strong by effrontery. The strong grow weak through inhibition. [Henry Kissinger]

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. [Mortimer Adler]

Those whom God would destroy, He first makes mad. [Sophocles’ Antigone]

The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement. [unknown]

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. [Aristotle]

If at first you dont succeed, call in an air strike. [Unknown]

Turns out the guy who made a boatload of money investing in Apple was guilty of in cider trading. [Noone Will Claimit]

I am a soldier. I fight where I am told and I win where I fight. [George S. Patton, Jr.]

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. [Robert E. Lee]

I don’t make jokes… I just watch the government and report the facts. [Will Rogers]

The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal: a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. [Ronald Reagan]

A lion uses all its might in attacking a rabbit. [Chinese proverb]

The cause doesn’t have to be righteous and battle doesn’t have to be winnable; but over and over again throughout history, men have chosen to die in battle with their friends rather than to flee on their own and survive. [Sebastiab Junger, author]

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. [Ezra Pound]

America is a great playpen of civilization filled with toddler adults who have never experienced the violent brutality of life outside the safe confines of our political borders. [George Strong]

PSA…

If any of you veterans use Lawton (Ft. Sill) VA for your eye doctor, they moved!!!

And the main gate off Hwy 62 is temporarily close… grrr…

Anyhoo, the optometrist and glasses folks are no longer at the remote clinic off Sheridan Road, they are now located in the Reynolds Health Clinic, which is right behind the VA clinic.

Go to the south entrance to Reynolds, take the elevator to the third floor, and head north down the corridor. The sign in is on the right side. They are very good, and very quick! I was in and out in less than a half hour, including ordering a new set of glasses!

The VA clinic is still the place for pretty much everything else you might need. Also, if you’re using a CPAP, the ONLY day they take walk in appointments on Monday. Sigh…

Welp…

We finally got rain…

Screenshot

Boy, did we GET rain! Officially 4.64 inches in 24 hours.

This is basically what the screen looked like from Wednesday night through last night. My little unofficial back fence rain gauge said a hair over 5 inches, but what do I know.

As a friend said, “Thank You, Lord! Could You spread the next one out a little, please?”

All I can say to that is Amen! We have a LOT of standing water, which really doesn’t do us much good, as it’s going to run off, not sink in. Sigh…

And the temps are supposed to drop at least 20-30 degrees from what we had, calling for highs in the mid-60s today.

Obviously NOT going to be shorts weather today, and probably long sleeved shirt too!

And now I’m gonna have to mow again. I haven’t had to mow since June! At least I will as soon as it dries out…

We could do without this whole feast/famine deal with the rain, just sayin…

TBT…

In honor of my Pipeliners story in the Tom Burnett Roaring 20s anthology!

Old gas stations… And some old brands that no longer exist… And some nice old vehicles too!

old-station-1 old-station-2 old-station-3 old-station-4 old-station-5 old-station-6

Administrivia…

Playing a bit of catch up…

The Tom Burnett Library anthology is just about ready to go. The cover is designed, the stories have been selected, the contracts have been sent out, and I got the final line edits back today.

The order of the stories has also been set, and now comes the formatting (thankfully not my job now), line edit review, author approval, and then it goes to publication.

The order of stories is ‘supposed’ to be fairly easy… Open Strong, Close Strong,  Anchor the Middle, Balance Length and Pacing, Manage Tone and Emotional Trajectory, and last but not least, Vary Perspectives and Styles. Sounds easy, but it’s NOT!!!

Those ‘rules’ assume you have a large variety of stories, lengths, etc. In reality, you end up with stories that are ‘close’ to each other in a lot of those categories, and you end up making decisions based on what feels right to you at the time… sigh…

And somebody will always say they would have done it differently…

Anyhoo, back to reading the stories again and many thanks to Laura for the line edits! After that is done, it’s back to the authors one last time for a final approval.

And I’m also trying to finish a conceptual edit for another author that I’m late on… dammit…

Back in battery…

Kinda, sorta…

It’s bad when you come back off vacation so you can rest…LOL

Anyhoo, got to spend time with friends up in Big Sky country!

We ate too much, chatted a lot, and mainly caught up on everyone’s lives. We’re all getting older… sigh…

What is even worse, the AR-15 now classifies as a curio and relic weapon! The patent and trademarks were sold to Colt in 1959! And Colt first manufactured the rifle in 1964 for civilian use.

To qualify as a curio or relic, a firearm must be 50 Years or Older: Manufactured at least 50 years prior to the current date (excluding modern replicas). (As of 2026, this includes firearms manufactured in or before 1976.) So if you have a Colt AR-15 SP1, it’s legally a curio and relic… sigh…

FWIW, the AR designation is for Armalite Rifle (e.g. Eugene Stoner’s original design), NOT automatic rifle or assault rifle. Not that anybody on the left cares…

I’m digging through all the emails and other stuff I’ve been ignoring for the last four days, so I’ll try to get a real post up tomorrow!

And here we go…

AIs (LLMs) are now being used in hospitals…

The American Hospital Association is pushing back on a Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report that linked hospitals’ growing use of artificial intelligence-enabled documentation tools to higher healthcare spending, arguing the analysis does not prove AI is driving improper billing.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association estimated that coding-related changes resulted in $942 million in additional spending for participating Blue plans between 2023 and 2025 as hospitals increasingly classified patients as having more complex conditions.

But the AHA said Monday that the analysis lacks critical context and does not establish that hospitals incorrectly coded patients or that AI tools were responsible for the changes.

“The central question is not whether hospitals are reporting more diagnoses,” the AHA said. “The question is whether the patient’s medical record supports those diagnoses.”

Full article, HERE from Fox News.

Anybody want to bet the LLMs are using the IF/THEN matrix to ‘add’ diagnoses to patients?

For those who may not be familiar with it, IF/THEN is a use case where you get the IF (say a specific diagnosis) and the THEN says if the patient has ‘this’, it must also have ‘that’, e.g. the second diagnosis…

This is basic programming, and I can easily see this being done by the LLMs since they are being used to ‘ensure’ the hospitals are making a profit…

Other than the Shrine Hospitals and St. Jude, I cannot think of a hospital these days that isn’t a profit center…

sigh…

Bye, bye…

Bones are gone from RAF Fairford…

The US Air Force has pulled its bombers from RAF Fairford following an investigation into an alleged planned terror attack at the base.

The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the US, according to a Pentagon official who was not authorised to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on Sunday on condition of anonymity.

A Pentagon spokesperson said: “While ⁠operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our ​assets and forces in ‌real time, we can acknowledge ‌now that all US bombers that were deployed to ‌RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States.”

Full article, HERE from The Guardian.

Personally, I think this is a smart move. No point in waiting around to see if the terrorists are going to try for round two…

After the ‘lack’ of action by the Brits, ‘somebody’ on our side had their head screwed on straight and sent the orders to GTFO, NOW!

This is not the time to be ‘playing nice’ with an ally and putting our folks at risk. Especially with the Brit’s ‘mentality’ of protecting the muslim ‘immigrants’…

Of note, very little has made the news about the people arrested, then almost immediately released, which causes the hackles to rise immediately!

It ‘may’ be time to look at pulling our folks out of the other British bases, along with those in Germany…

Just sayin…

 

A little humor…

To start the week…

A Lord Nelson in today’s British Navy!

Nelson: “Order the signal, Hardy.”

Hardy: “Aye, aye sir.”

Nelson: “Hold on, this isn’t what I dictated to Flags. What’s the meaning of this?”

Hardy: “Sorry sir?”

Nelson (reading aloud): “England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion or disability. ‘What gobbledygook is this for God’s sake?”

Hardy: “Admiralty policy, I’m afraid, sir. We’re an equal opportunities employer now. We had the devil’s own job getting ‘England’ past the censors, lest it be considered racist.”

Nelson: “Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco.”

Hardy: “Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments.”

Nelson: “In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the main brace to steel the men before battle.”

Hardy: “The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. It’s part of the Government’s policy on binge drinking.”

Nelson: “Good heavens, Hardy. I suppose we’d better get on with it, full speed ahead.”

Hardy: “I think you’ll find that there’s a 4 knot speed limit in this stretch of water. It’s an environment protection initiative.”

Nelson: “Damn it man! We are on the eve of the greatest sea battle in history. We must advance with all dispatch. Report from the crow’s nest, please.”

Hardy: “That won’t be possible, sir.”

Nelson: “What?”

Hardy: “Health and Safety have closed the crow’s nest, Sir. No harness; and they said that rope ladders don’t meet regulations. They won’t let anyone up there until proper scaffolding can be erected.”

Nelson: “Then get me the ship’s carpenter without delay, Hardy.”

Hardy: “He’s busy knocking up a wheelchair access to the foredeck Admiral.”

Nelson: “Wheelchair access? I’ve never heard anything so absurd.”

Hardy: “Anti-discrimination requirements, sir. We have to provide a barrier-free environment for the differently abled…..”

Nelson: “Differently abled? I’ve only one arm and one eye and I refuse even to hear mention of the word. I didn’t rise to the rank of Admiral by playing the disability card.”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, you did. The Royal Navy is under-represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency.”

Nelson: “Whatever next? Give me full sail. The salt spray beckons.”

Hardy: “A couple of problems there too, sir. Health and safety won’t let the crew up the rigging without hard hats. And they don’t want anyone breathing in too much salt; haven’t you seen the adverts?”

Nelson: “I’ve never heard such infamy. Break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy.”

Hardy: “The men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone, Admiral.”

Nelson: “What? This is mutiny!”

Hardy: “It’s not that, sir. It’s just that they’re afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone. There are a couple of legal-aid lawyers on board, watching everyone like hawks.”

Nelson: “Then how are we to sink the Frenchies and the Spanish?”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, we’re not.”

Nelson: “We’re not?”

Hardy: “No, sir. The French and the Spanish are our European partners now. According to the Common Fisheries Policy, we shouldn’t even be in this stretch of water. We could get hit with a claim for compensation.”

Nelson: “But you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.”

Hardy: “I wouldn’t let the ship’s diversity coordinator hear you saying that sir. You’ll be up on disciplinary report.”

Nelson: “You must consider every man an enemy who speaks ill of your King.”

Hardy: “Not any more, sir. We must be inclusive in this multicultural age. Now put on your Kevlar vest; it’s the rules. It could save your life.”

Nelson: “Don’t tell me – health and safety again! Whatever happened to rum, sodomy and the lash?”

Hardy: “”As I explained, sir, rum is off the menu! And there’s a ban on corporal punishment.”

Nelson: “What about sodomy?”

Hardy: “I believe that is now legal, sir.”

Nelson: “In that case. kiss me, Hardy.”