Flag day!!!

Why today???

It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The Flag Resolution stated “That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

Of course we’ve added a few more stars (and States) since then…

This was taken at sunset, as it flies everyday! And yes, it is lighted at night.

In our little town, they put out the flags (both US and Texas) on important dates like Memorial Day, Flag Day, the 4th, and Veterans Day. Gotta love ’em for that!

Well…

It’s ON now…

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have launched a sweeping strike on Iran following months of attempted, and seemingly failed, nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and Tehran, but according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. was not involved in the strikes. 

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran,” Rubio said in a statement Thursday night. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.

“Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense,” he added. 

Full article, HERE from Fox News.

It’s apparent that Israel had had enough, they thought there was a clear and present danger to Israel’s survival. They were, as of last night, going after the IRGC leadership and Iran’s nuke infrastructure.

Now we’ll have to see what happens next…

Personally, I think it was both justified and the minimum required to get the mission done.

What say you???

Floaters…

If you’ve ever had eye issues, you’ve had ‘floaters’… those odd ‘bits’ that float across your vision at the worst possible time.  Yesterday afternoon, I had YAG laser capsulotomy on my left eye to fix the secondary issues after cataract surgery.

So not only were both eyes dilated, they shot the left eye with the laser and broke up the capsule leading to multiple floaters! And it’s irritating as hell to try to do anything requiring concentrating on anything ‘visual’.

So you get a meme…

IYKYK…

Needs must…

Brits and Canadians went over and above after D-Day… 🙂

One of the first squadrons to take part in beer runs was 412 RCAF Squadron of 126 Wing, Second Tactical Air Force which was locally based at RAF Merston and then latterly at RAF Tangmere during the invasion period. Climbing up over the Sussex countryside and setting course for the recently created forward landing grounds on freshly liberated French soil, although they were not always totally liberated! One of the first landings occurred on a strip known as ‘B4’ that still had German snipers within range and the pilots were informed that they should depart forthwith!

Full article, HERE with pictures from Spitfires.com

I’m guessing that this wasn’t the ‘first’ time booze got carried by aircraft, but at least this time it had approval!

And it’s a neat story of things getting done to keep the troops happy!

I hope y’all enjoy the story!

Some folks…

Who know their way around programming are ‘less than impressed’ with the current state of LLM AI…

The AI and Internet are garbage. So far, a glorified electronic dictionary.
IMAGE Recognition and Generation has been very good,  The rest is a copy cat approach of variously collections of data. Digital DATA, Just like US Postal mail, some stuff is real, required, and others are totally irrelevant and wasteful.
The only difference was the dictionary was based upon REAL (for the most part, and even then was discrepancies) . Now we have a S___show, of the Wild West, with incompetence and greed, trying to make binary decisions, based upon telemetry, historical digital values, and actions of poor autonomous systems based upon erroneous, uncertain, poorly factored inputs and values.

I get his point, and I have to agree with him…

Sigh…

A little humor…

To start your week!!!

I never knew one word in the English language that could be a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition: “UP”

Be sure to read until the end… You’ll laugh.

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is ‘UP.’

It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.

At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now… My time is UP!

Oh . . . one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?

U

P!

Did that one crack you UP? Don’t screw UP.

Sigh…

FAS is at it again… And ‘we’ are to blame, as usual…

When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the United States and Russia began the process of slowly dismantling their nuclear arsenals. Under the 2010 deal, New Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START), they are each limited to 1,550 deployed strategic weapons on land, at sea, and in the air. Russia’s arsenal is missile-heavy, while the U.S. has a more balanced strategic arsenal.  

That agreement expires in February 2026, with little prospect that it will be renewed or respected. That means that both the U.S. and Russia will be free to build as many nukes as they can manage. They can be as exotic as can be imagined; nuclear missiles that can stay aloft for weeks, “glide bombs” designed to evade radar, and the ubiquitous “suitcase bomb” that could blow up several blocks while irradiating an entire city.

Unlike policymakers of the past during the nuclear standoffs of the 1960s-1990s, today’s leaders must face a vastly different atomic world. 

The Federation of American Scientists, an organization created by scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, has been tracking the worrisome trends and believes the prospect of nuclear war has never been greater.

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

These are the same people who publish the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock. They were founded to ‘counter’ military control of nuclear weapons, instead, wanting civilian control of them (that scares the hell out of me even more than military control).

With nine (at least admitted) countries having nukes now, it has become a bigger problem (known in science as a three body problem if you want to go research it).

These folks have protested, railed in media and press releases, and done everything they can do ‘scare’ people into destroying their weapons. But just like anything else, there is no way to actually determine of ‘all’ weapons are destroyed (see Iran’s current games).

They have continually cried wolf throughout the Cold War, and now are becoming even more strident. One hopes that sanity will prevail is spite of these people!!!

Shrinkflation…

It’s a thing…

One of America’s most popular restaurant chains has been accused of “shrinkflation” by some of its most loyal customers.

The Cheesecake Factory, famous for its large portion sizes, has 200-plus locations across the United States. The chain is well-known for having an expansive, calorie-packed menu of over 250 items across various cuisines.

But the restaurant is now being accused of shrinkflation, which is when companies make products smaller while keeping prices the same or raising them.

Full article, HERE from Fox News.

Actually, this is nothing new, it’s been going on for a while, most notably with packaged foods like cereal, chips, cookies, etc. A couple of years ago, I got a bag of chips on a flight (YAY NO PRETZELS), and it had eight, count ’em EIGHT chips in the bag… sigh… The next bag had fourteen!

But this is now also hitting the restaurant chains, and anywhere food is served, I believe. I think you will see the end of ‘endless’ things like breads, salads, and buffets. The rationale is saving money for the corporation as profits shrink due to lack of customers and higher salaries to keep staff. Contrary to what the left says, restaurants run on thin margins, and any cost increase can cause a successful restaurant to go in the red.

That is why we’ve seen a number of ‘high end’ restaurants close on the west coast, between the new wage requirements, fewer customers, and higher cost of ingredients.

What is coming down the road? Personally, I think we will continue to see higher prices for less product, and portion sizes decreasing meat, fish, poultry, and pork in the stores. I also think we will see a diminishing of product availability in things like chips, cereal, soft drinks, and possibly things like condiments as manufacturers look at bottom lines and what product sells and what doesn’t.

Of note, from what I’ve seen over the years, American portion sizes were larger than anywhere else in the world… FWIW…

Your thoughts?

I got nothing…

So you get humor…

Hugh Hefner became a multi millionaire by staying home in his pajamas. I am not having the same result.

Mom said “My child will not eat fish. What can I replace it with?” I replied “A cat, Cats love fish”

I came home and discovered my kids were on Ebay all day, if they are still on Ebay this evening I will lower the price”

What do you get when you cross a vampire with a snowman ? WHAT? Frostbite

People are too judgemental these days, I can tell by just looking at them.

Great hide and seek players are really hard to find.

My father worked 12 hours a day to put food on the table, a really great man but he sure was a very slow cook.

A cruise ship passes by a remote island, and all the passengers see a bearded man running around and waving his arms wildly. “Captain,” one passenger asks, “who is that man over there?”
“I have no idea,” the captain says, “but he goes nuts every year when we pass him.”

Surgery…

By the time you read this, I will be on the way to the hospital for surgery to repair my fracture in my lower back after six months.

Prayers would be appreciated…

Go read the folks on the sidebar, they rite gud!