By The Numbers - part the one hundreth and one

Stupid is as Stupid does. So, an idiot Mainer thinks an AI data center will make as many jobs as the old paper mill that shut down years ago. Ain't gonna be. Data centers, esp. AI version, are almost all hardware. That runs itself.

"The parking lot we're standing in was full. There were probably about 800 employees. Good money and good salaries."

Right. Data centers, on average, barely break 100. And those folks are mechanical drones in flesh colored skin with actual technical training. Not uneducated paper mill drones. Some voice of reason speaks

Utility bills spike, water systems are strained, taxpayers subsidize these projects, communities deal with constant noise, light pollution and environmental degradation.
-- Democratic State Representative Melanie Sachs

Same grift as sports arenas: the billionaires get richer, and the poor get stiffed. And, surprise, surprise: I guess the grift just wasn't big enough for the billionaires

The company that would have provided the computer servers pulled out of the project. Tony's deal fell apart. Now, he says he's working on finding a new partner. But for the time being, the parking lot at the paper mill is still empty, and the town of Jay is still waiting for a lifeline.

Just in case you don't know (and, of course, I suspected but didn't know until I looked it up) the mill town is Jay, in Franklin county, and said county is near the bottom of Maine's counties by college education. So, who would run this data center, if it were built? Aliens from Big Blue cities in Blue states, likely not the unemployed mill workers.. Always works out that way. It ain't easy turning a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Ya gotta run the numbers before you sign on the dotted line. Morons always think the city slickers can be taken for a ride. The problem with moving from yesterday's tech and yesterday's workforce is: it doesn't compute. Never has. Never will. The reason the Great Migration worked was simply that the workforce in Northern factories wasn't brain-taxed to work the assembly lines. How many Damn Gummint programs helped buggy whip factories become car factories? Let me know when you find even one.

Dear Marco, Some History

Now that Bone Spur Samurai^© has caved to Iran, with this announcement about missiles

I'm saying that if other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for them not to have some. If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's okay.

OK, so Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) has a heart of fairness wrt to Iran, all of a sudden.

I wonder: has Little Marco been listening? Let's turn the clock, back to the future, wrt to Cuber. It finally came to the public that the Rusher/Cuber effort was not a first attack. It was, in fact, a defensive measure. It finally was revealed that the United States of Alabama had put similar missiles in Turkey long before Rusher/Cuber made the effort to balance the scales. Of course, even JFK went ballistic. So to speak.

In 1959, the US government deployed Thor nuclear missiles in England, an initiative known as Project Emily. In 1961 the US put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. All were within range of Moscow.

JFK and Nikita secretly drew back from the brink. The deal was revealed in 1969.

So, Little Marco, detente with Cuber is the better path.

Thought For The Day - 18 June 2026

Now that Bone Spur Samurai^© and his lackeys Witkoff and Kushner, experienced foreign ministers of the first water all, have been rolled by their Iran counterparts, we must ask: what did the United States of Alabama get for all that time and treasure (and some body bags)? Well... I expect we'll soon see Trump Tower Tehran. After all, that's all the Three Stooges care about.

Yeah That's Right

Likely been mentioned here before, but, what the hell, why not yet again? My Pappy explained it all decades ago. Of course, didn't actually explain anything, simply reported what he saw.

He finally get drafted, then being WWII and all, and even in those dire times, the US military took the effort to sort the knuckleheads from the brainiacs. Pappy was closer to the latter than the former. The result was that rather than carry a rifle and get shot at by Germans or Japanese, the Signal Corp had first pick, so he built radio towers. Say, what? Turns out that back then, and it turns out more necessarily, airplanes needed signaling towers in order to know where they are and where they are going. These were and are called beacons. Not so important now, what with GPS and satellites generally.

Most of his time was spent in North Africa, mostly around Algeria. And, being the local winners, he and his crew were billeted in mansion-like housing. And, for good measure, they had a houseboy to do the scutwork. Said houseboy was a juvenile, may be 10 years old. Pappy was impressed; the kid spoke a handful of languages fluently. And not all White Man's language, either. Pappy was amazed.

Over the years I've returned to that story from time to time in idle conversation. My sister was born when I was 13, so I saw her early development with near-adult eyes and ears. And, I've also known myriad people who grew up with more than one language. So, how is such fluency possible? It sure as shit ain't like falling off a log for many, if not most, adults.

My interpretation is dumbshit simple: when a walking meatloaf begins to contemplate hearing and speech and meaning, said meatloaf has no notion of languages, plural. To the walking meatloaf it's all sounds. Just sounds. Language is not yet a concept. Just sounds. And, over time, each sound gets associated with some thing. And just things, not yet abstract ideas, like special relativity.

As the walking meatloaf is exposed to sounds and things, he is also exposed to the people making these sounds with these things, and, if the walking meatloaf isn't as dumb as a sack of hair, he'll notice that Joe has one sound for truck while Jacque has a different sound for that truck. So, the walking meatloaf doesn't care about the sounds, except that which one to use is determined by the object and the person/people making the sound.

So, in simplistic terms, walking meatloaf doesn't learn multiple languages (the walking meatloaf is ignorant of languages), but just one. Only later will he be told that one is english and another french, and still another arabic. And that's the kicker: language family doesn't matter either. It's all just sounds.

And that's about what the high priced researchers more or less found

On the whole, Dr. Blanco-Elorrieta said in a news release, a single "grammatical engine" in the brain appeared capable of powering multiple languages at once.

Well, no shit Sherlock. Engine runs just on petrol, not petrol, diesel, and natural gas at the same time. It's not obvious from the report who the subjects of the study were. It matters whether they were adults learning some second language, or like Pappy's houseboy, absorbing multiple languages (really just Language) from the gitgo.

Here's the core error

Early research viewed bilingualism as an "add on" or "disruption" to the processing of one's native language, said Judith Kroll, a psycholinguist at the University of California, Irvine who was not involved in the new study.

For the walking meatloaf, it's all one native language. A mix of different sounds, depending on the context. Context another concept that walking meatloaf is clueless.

Thought For The Day - 14 June 2026

I wonder... how is a 60-day cease fire the same as "unconditional surrender"? Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) lying yet again. I wonder... will the MAGAnaut idiots see the difference? Will they credit Bone Spur Samurai^© with ending the war just by making (so he says now) Hormuz open again? Status quo ante isn't much to write home about. Well... unless you're a malignant lying narcissist.

Of course, he had to have something to sell. After all he's 80 today, and likely won't remember anything tomorrow.

I Told You So - 11 June 2026

Well... almost. I hope nothing more. Back on 3 June, I opined that Pulte was installed to erase the NSA tapes from 2016/Trump/Russia. Now comes this from the NYT

The president has also long been deeply skeptical of the intelligence community, primarily because of the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russians who, officials have repeatedly said, interfered in the presidential election that year to harm Mr. Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

A real DNI, not even Gabbard, would do such bidding. Pulte? He doesn't even need to be asked. Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) has been very busy erasing anyone and anything which challanges his psychotic view of the world and its history.

[Well... that didn't age all that well!]
I saw the Clayton announcement and thought, "from worst to worst". Just as unqualified. Just now found this

Donald Trump has agreed to drop Bill Pulte - but his new choice is just as bad.

Great minds run in the same gutter.

Dee Feat is in Dee Flation - part the fifty first

Just a reminder from Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

So, I've plucked some part of Part 44 (aka, the Covid inflation problem) to refresh your memories; and don't have to re-write the wheel. Emporer Nero The Donald^© (better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte) is dead set (and deadheaded, though not that old rock band version) on repeating the LBJ fiasco of guns and butter. And he'll blame the Chinese or the Democrats or Cuber (more on that is coming). Here we go again.

The Moneterists mantra is that inflation is solely the result of too much moolah in the economy, and therefore the only cure is to 'take away the punch bowl'. As it happens, sometimes it is true that excess moolah has invaded the economy, and resulted in inflation. In my short lifetime, the most infamous devolved from LBJ's "guns and butter" speech and subsequent actions. Excess real demand exceeded available widgets.

Q. Mr. President, from what you have outlined as your program for now, it would seem that you feel that we can have guns and butter for the foreseeable future. Do you have any idea right now, though, that down the road a piece the American people may have to face the problem of guns or butter?

THE PRESIDENT. I have not the slightest doubt but whatever it is necessary to face, the American people will face. I think that all of us know that we are now in the 5 ad month of the prosperity that has been unequaled in this Nation, and I see no reason for declaring a national emergency and I rejected that course of action earlier today when I made my decision.

I cannot foresee what next year, or the following year, or the following year will hold. I only know that the Americans will do whatever is necessary. At the moment we enjoy the good fortune of having an unparalleled period of prosperity with us, and this Government is going to do all it can to see it continue.

Which then got us the Volker destruction. It took some time, abetted by Nixon of course.

So now, according to Bone Spur Samurai^©, this isn't a forever war, his monuments to his monumental ego don't matter, tax breaks for the rich don't matter, and K-shape economy doesn't matter. The price of gas will drop through the floor, along with everything else, the instant the War is Won and Hormuz is instantly "open". He'll likely fall asleep then, just like at the Knicks came. The little people, black, brown, and white will take it in the neck. As usual. He, of course, gets all the butter.