5.14.2025 – no regulating

no regulating
artificial models of
intelligence

According to the article, Republicans propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years by Johana Bhuiyan in the Guardian (5/14/2025): Republicans in US Congress are trying to bar states from being able to introduce or enforce laws that would create guardrails for artificial intelligence or automated decision-making systems for 10 years

The bill:

TITLE IV—ENERGY AND COMMERCE
Subtitle C—Communications
PART 2—ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION
SEC. 43201. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION INITIATIVE, states: No State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.

I have heard of its too late to lock the barn doors after the horse escapes, but to prohibit, for 10 years, anyone trying to lock the barn doors …

And yes, the rest of the analogy applies.

That horse escaped a long time ago.

So no matter really but what else will these bozos come up with to waste my time.

5.10.2025 – those who have removed

those who have removed
generous impulses that
are the nation’s soul

Adapted from the line:

When we are told to forego all dissent and division, we must ask:

Who is it that is truly dividing the country?

It is not those who call for change;

it is those who make present policy who divide our country;

those who bear the responsibility for our present course;

those who have removed themselves from the American tradition, from the enduring and generous impulses that are the soul of the nation…

Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. in an Address at Vanderbilt University, March 21, 1968

5.9.2025 – never understand

never understand
how nation suffered themselves
to be cast so low

If we study the history of Rome and Carthage, we can understand what happened and why.

It is not difficult to understand and form an intelligent view about the three Punic Wars; but if mortal catastrophe should overtake the British nation and the British Empire, historians a thousand years hence will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs.

They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory.

Winston Churchill on March 24, 1938 in a speech delivered in the House of Commons.

Looking back at this era … the Trump Age … the Lost Age … the time when a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory, it will be hard to understand.

Yet, that is what I am hoping for.

That we yet arrive at an time where we look back … and wonder … something went wrong here.

Lets hope its more of bump than a stumble and not a full face plant.

5.3.2025 – be joyful in hope

be joyful in hope,
patient in affliction and
faithful in prayer

When you start your day with your tablet on the online Bible Gateway and the verse of the day is Romans 12:12, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” and all I have to do is add the word ‘and’ to get to a 5 – 7- 5 syllable ratio (which I know is not the true definition of a haiku – see my section on ‘What is …’ ) it was too good to not use.

Be joyful in hope.

Patient in affliction.

Faithful in prayer.

In a time of oh-what-can-i-do-oh-what-can-i-do, it kind of sums it up.

As I already added an ‘and’ might I suggest to add a snippet from the Psalms?

Be joyful in hope.

Patient in affliction.

Faithful in prayer.

Be still, and know that I am God.

4.29.2025 – I believe all the

I believe all the
church teaches – makes a poor fit
for either party

Adapted from the paragraph:

Devout Catholics have historically been difficult to place in the American political binary. They were often anti-abortion but in favor of immigration and a social safety net. “I believe all the church teaches,” Leah Libresco Sargeant, the author of two books on her Catholic faith, told me. “I try to live up to it. And obviously that makes me a poor fit for either political party.”

In the article, ‘Maga Catholics’ are gaining ground in the US. Now their sight is set on the Vatican by J Oliver Conroy in the Guardian on April 29, 2025.

There was a time when the same could have been said about Evangelical Christians in America.

You know what word stands out for me in that passage?

It’s that word there, obviously.

Like … DUH.

Like … OF COURSE.

I am reminded of the old question …

Are you a Christian by conviction … or by convenience?

As Garrison Keillor once wrote, or as close as I can remember, “They didn’t learn anything new to the day they died. The next day, though, they learned an awful lot.”