Mysterious Lockheed Constellation at JFK

When I arrived at JFK on June 24th and walked out of the terminal, across the way I was greeted by the sight of a Lockheed Constellation in TWA livery before the TWA terminal.  What it was doing there I do not know but when I left two days later, June 26th, it was gone.  Some people think this is one of the most beautiful airplanes ever designed.

Here is a picture of it in its WW2 USAF C-69 form.

By USAF 
http://www.edwards.af.mil/gallery/html_pgs/cargo3.htm

Public Domain, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=230534

Booking.Com and the Death of Customer Service

I had a wonderful trip to NYC at the last minute thanks in large part to my friends at the American Museum of Natural History.  In another post I will talk about all the wonderful parts of the trip but this post is about warning you off of an internet scam called Booking.com.

I make the plane reservation with Google who sent me to Booking.com.  I thought nothing of it.  I made my hotel reservation with Priceline.  This worked perfectly.

But when I got to LAX I discovered that booking had put my trip in July and the return trip to Ontario, not LAX.  I dont know how they did this.  I always said June, that was the whole point.  I never said Ontario, why would I want to go there.  So Jetblue, at the gate, puts me the plane I wanted at a very reasonable price on top of what I had paid Booking, of course.

Then started the nightmare of trying to reach booking to see what could be done.  The short version is that you can not reach customer support.  It is obviously deliberate, they just found another sucker, me, stole the money and that was that.

Jetblue was able to recover some of the money and I could fly home at a reduced rate, no thanks to Booking.com or to Google.

Caveat Emptor, I suppose.

Yeehaw Another War

There are people in this world who incorrectly believe that America just loves to go to war and will do so on the slightest pretext and without much thought.  Of course that is not true!  And we can trust Trump, the moron king, to only do what is good for America!

Biographical Sketch Written for ACM SIGGRAPH

Apparently ACM SIGGRAPH keeps a web page of biographies of a sort for those who volunteer.  They provide a list of questions.  Here is what I wrote:

1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?

Its very nice of you to ask.  Whatever it is I do now is different from what I did then.  The world was a different place and it is hard to explain.  No one thought that computer animation would be useful for much.  There were some of us who felt compelled to show that it was useful in various diverse ways.  Some of these true believers had to sneak around and publish ideas and hope their management never found out.  Some of us postponed graduate school or took a cut in pay or otherwise did career damaging things that seem irresponsible in retrospect.  

So I did some of those things.  I wrote an animation system (primarily a renderer) for a leading production company.  That software, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be the prototype for a system that got used by 500 studios worldwide and won me a Science and Technology award from the Motion Picture Academy.  Then I helped friends produce a short animated film that featured behavioral animation as a way of supporting my friend Craig Reynolds who was publishing on that topic that year.  After that, being unemployed, I got into business with my friend Brad deGraf, starting out in his garage, and that was pretty crazy.  We ended up hiring everyone we knew and helped produce a real time character for SIGGRAPH with one of the earliest SGI workstations and then did a bunch of other productions for theme parks and feature films back before CG was used for that.  

The point is that whatever my role may have been in those underfinanced exercises in idealism, they didn't pay well nor did they lead to normal employment.  It was fun but not very practical.  Now, everyone does this stuff and for many years I have been looking for things to do that might be valued in society, like money laundering or destabilizing governments.  While I wait to win the lottery, I try to keep busy by making pictures with computers and teaching a class now and then.

2. What was your first job?

My first real job was with the RAND Corporation. They put me on one of those well-meaning social research projects from the 1970s.  They paid my way back to school and let me work with some amazing people and gave me access to their facilities. 

3. Where did you complete your formal education?

I have degrees from UCLA.

4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?

Suzy Landa of RAND hosted the Los Angeles chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH in a conference room there. This was perhaps 1976 or 1977.  That is where I met Larry Cuba, John Whitney Jr, Gary Demos, Richard Hollander, Art Durinsky, Craig Reynolds, Doug Kay, George Joblove, Bill Kovacs, Jim Blinn, Pat Cole and others. My management at RAND insisted that I attend at least one academic conference per year and so I suggested the national SIGGRAPH Conference.  

5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?

Most of the national conferences took place for me in a haze of sleep deprivation and fear. 

At the conference in 1980 I went to hear a talk by someone named Dr. Ed Catmull on the topic of what he had learned running a CG lab at the New York Institute of Technology.   I went up to introduce myself afterwards and he spent about an hour talking to me about what he wanted to do next which was to make feature length, narrative-driven, animated films with computers. At the time, very few people thought that would be possible.  Ed and friends went on to found PIXAR.

The technical reception was small enough that you could meet people.  Three of the young people there in what might have been 1981 carried a notebook with test pictures.  They had just graduated from college. They were Carl Rosendahl, Richard Chuang, and Glenn Entis, the founders of Pacific Data Images.  

I sat next to Larry Cuba when his film “Calculated Movements” premiered at the Electronic Theatre.

Trey Stokes, Brad deGraf and I performed the synthetic opera in real time at the Electronic Theatre of 1988.

6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.

Just want to say hi and thank anyone who helped out who I might have forgotten to thank at the time. 

7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?

I wonder what restaurant and who is picking up the check?  Will someone provide a translator to come to dinner with us in the case that our guest does not speak modern English? A few names come to mind as potential candidates.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Eric Blair, Evelyn Waugh, Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georges Danton, Maimonides, Hugues de Payens, Malcolm X, the Marquis de Lafayette, Karl Marx, Oleg son of Rurik, Crazy Horse of the Lakota, Richard Henry Lee of the Virginia Continental Congress, Charles Darwin, Dr. John von Neumann, Kandinsky, Man Ray and others.  Maybe we should have a dinner party?

8. What is something most people don’t know about you?

I don't think I should talk about that.

9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?

The great American author Louis L’Amour, in an airline magazine, once said that you should never tell your age.  There is too much ageism in America.  

Willis Ware of the RAND Corporation showed me a 16 mm film shot off the screen by someone named Ivan Sutherland.  It was part of his thesis project, I think, about something called Sketchpad. 

10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?

My parole officer

11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?

Pride is a sin

V 2   5/7/2025

Selfies June 2025

Cantamus

In examining software for text to song, I came across Cantamus.app.  I know very little about it beyond their demo and that they are located in Barcelona.  If you get a chance, please listen to their demo, especially from 00:39 forward.

cantamus.app

The Democrats Failed Again

I would have thought that after Schumer failed to hold up the Trump budget that the Democrats would be on their best behavior.  I was wrong.

Apparently the Republicans in the House passed their fascist budget by 1 vote.  But the Democrats had lost three votes because some old members had refused to retire in time to be replaced but died in office.

OK, this disqualifies them from leadership.  

AOC and Booker should form a new party.

Administrative Note 5/30/2025

As you know, I dont actually know who reads my blog.  I am getting bored with all the politics.

For R&D Using Machine Learning Now is the Time

It turns out that science has its periods of boom and not-boom.  We are in a period of boom for many sciences and industrial processes that are using machine learning.   If you want to be a part of that, you have to act now.

Astronomy is a great example of the boom theory of scientific advancement.  Some Dutch guy invents the telescope and suddenly you have Galileo and others.   Same thing with planetary probes, radio astronomy, and so forth.  When they have new data, they can publish new work.

And now,  AI or as we might call it, machine learning, has opened up a hundred doors, or a thousand doors, all at once.  And everyone is running through those doors and if you dont, well too bad, there is still work to do but it wont be as easy and may not be possible.

Fortune favors the prepared mind, and it also favors those with the resources who are enabled to do the work when the time comes.

This is all obvious, I am just complaining.

Forgive me.

Walls and Constitutions

There is a story that in late antiquity the people of Rome wanted to build new walls in order to protect themselves from the hordes ravaging Italy.  Supposedly their top general tried to dissuade them saying "There is no point building walls if you dont have people who are willing to man them".

In the same vein, it seems to me that there are some similarities here to our current situation in America.  There is no point in having laws if you are not willing to enforce the law.  There is no reason to have a constitution if you can ignore it all you want and there are no consequences.

The Good News About US Science

According to a friend of mine who is a full professor of Computer Science, other countries see the destruction of the NSF and the authoritarian takeover of the US as a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve the science in their countries by attracting scientific talent.  

And why not, only a moron who did not know the history of this country during and since WW2 would try to destroy the NSF and the NIH.  

There are several theories here.  One is that the orange moron really does want to destroy America.  There are some variations on the theory that he just does not know what he is doing and thinks he is smarter than everyone else.  Why is the right so anti-intellectual?

An Interesting Discussion with a Trump Supporter

I enjoyed my conversation at a stoplight with a Trump supporter (30 something, male) in his truck flying a big trump banner.  What I concluded was that as long as people live in a fox news bubble, it will never be possible to change their mind.  

To be clear, I am saying that fixing things like Fox News is required, not optional.  If you cant fix it, fine, but do not expect that it will ever be possible to have democracy in this country again.

Special Thanks to my Fellow Americans

Exactly as predicted, Trump and friends are attempting to destroy American democracy and doing a good job of it.  Apparently all that self-serving rot about checks & balances was all "just kidding". In the history of the world, short of a major war, there has rarely been a national decline so precipitous and self-inflicted.  

We can be proud of failing better than anyone else.  But we could not have done it without the people who voted that idiot into office. 

The Moron King, Trump and the Republicans, were completely clear that they planned to destroy voting rights, betray our allies, destroy the world order created after WW2,  destroy the economy,  condemn millions of people to death and disease, oppress women, and turn America into a white theocracy.  You would either have to be stupid not to have known this or, alternatively, wanted it because you thought it was neat.

Winning a tiny share of the popular vote is not the same as a mandate and furthermore, even if it was, the President took an oath of office and is expected to obey the law and support the constitution.

America will have been diminished thanks to you wankers.  

Good job!

Let Us Embrace National Decline

The failure of democracy and speedy national decline of the American republic is a useful and perhaps necessary counter to the astonishing hubris and self congratulatory nature of our various elites.  It could not have happened without the arrogance and stupidity of so many people here from the rather blatant self-interest and treason of the Republicans to the weakness of the Democrats and their unwillingness to stand on principle to the obvious corruption of the judiciary (looking at you Justice Cannon, Alito & Roberts).

On the bright side, we should applaud the tremendous and world historical rate of decline of a formerly great country now destroyed.  Lets embrace our failure and look forward to the day when we can benefit from the tourists coming to witness the ruins.  Americans will rise to this challenge and be sure to greet these onlookers with souvenirs made in China.

Modified Coconut Chip Cookies

The following recipe is only approximate.  

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 tbsp plain yogurt, 1/2 stick unsalted butter (melted), 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp salt, 2 or 3 tbsp coconut oil, 1 cup flour, 3 cups or so coconut (unsweetened preferred), 3/4 cup white baking chocolate chips.    Add a few tbsps of hot water as needed.  Mix well. NB: no baking soda or powder.

Spoon out to baking pan.

Cook 18 minutes or so, or in the case where there are two levels of pans, 9 minutes and then switch the pans.

The Various Failures of the Democratic Party

Part 1 of 3.  Find parts 2 and 3 here, when they are written.

When you have a complete collapse of democracy there is plenty of blame to go around.  But I believe that second only to Trump the Pig, pride of place should go to my party, the Democrats.  Gotta love them, but I dont know any group of people more craven, more self-serving, more self-entitled or more self-deceived as the Democratic Party elites.  Weak and indecisive.  As the singing cowboy, Will Rogers, said: "I belong to no organized political party.  I am a Democrat".

In the last 25 years or so, I have watched the Democratic Party studiously work to fail.  Failure of this nature does not just happen; it takes sincere effort and a desire for excellence.   A willingness to work to the point of pain to demonstrate contempt for their constituency.  Instead of working to educate us, perhaps to show why something was necessary, the Democrat Party ignored its people.  And they kicked the can down the road rather than make a stand on principle.

In contrast, the Republican Party who may be despicable, seem to deliver for their constituency. From "her emails" to Benghazi, to Fox News, to defunding the government, to treason, the Republicans always deliver solid red meat.

This is not hindsight on my part.  I have been waving my arms like a maniac since November 2000 when I went to Washington to protest the Supreme Court coup d'etat. 

First there are the policy failures, and second there are specific events where the Democratic Party demonstrated lack of backbone.

On policy, they did not articulate a strong position on immigration.  They abandoned the center of the country to the ravages of a globalized, hollowed out America.  They did not take a strong stand on law enforcement or, for that matter, civil rights.  Always involved in political correctness beyond what most Americans care about.  And of course Biden failed to address inflation and the party lamely said that it did not exist.  

Then there are the specific issues or events where they failed to respond to fight and to lead. In no particular order. 

The Democrats failed to oppose the ridiculous Supreme Court decision that stole the election from Al Gore who was clearly winning.   They failed to get Merrick Garland onto the Supreme Court.  They failed to prosecute anyone in Wall Street for their malfeasance which led to the 2008 economic collapse. The Democratic party elites attempted to sabotage Sanders and give the nomination to Hilary. They exterminated the political career of Al Franken for no good reason.   Justice Ginzburg should have resigned during the Obama administration.  This was a mistake no Republican would make.  Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and Barrett should never have been permitted on the court. Garland, Smith and the DOJ failed to properly prosecute Trump. The Supreme Court immunity decision was an abomination. This list could be twice as long.  The Democratic party did nothing.

There are some exceptions to this of course.  There are some good Democrats.  AOC and Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders (I love Bernie!) but all too few and they are generally muffled by the Democratic elites.  Technically Bernie is not even a Democrat.

Whatever happens over the next few years or decades as we try to defeat our fascist dictator and his party, and restore democracy to this country, however that happens, one thing seems to be clear.  The Dems will not be a help and have nothing to contribute.  I am sure they will try to take credit later.

Budgets and the Supreme Court

The appalling effort to destroy American democracy continues at full speed.  There are so many outrages it is hard to know where to begin.  Lets start with the destruction of various departments in the executive branch.

Let me explain how it is supposed to work.  The president is supposed to act within bounds set by Congress and the courts.  There is a process here and of course Trump is abusing executive power and privilege.  But how is it supposed to work?  Here is a brief but oversimplified description.

There is a complicated budgeting process in Congress in which the House and the Senate each come up with their proposed budget.  Then the two groups meet in a joint process and try to hash things into a single budget.   Obviously some things get funded and some do not and people do not get everything they want. There is endless haggling here.  Some spending is mandatory, some is optional, there is lots of history. There is so much for foreign aid, so much for the National Institute of Health, so much for the National Parks, the Dept of Defense, Medicare and Medicaid, etc. Sometimes the budgets are broken into pieces, sometimes it is all one comprehensive budget. The various parties martial their votes and the house and the senate work to align their bills.  There is horse trading.  There are limitations on the debt and many other things.  When both houses agree, and when there are 60 votes in the Senate, then it gets sent to the president who could veto it, but if not, that becomes the budget for the year.  And when they can not agree, that is when we have a "continuing resolution" to give more time to hash things out.

If the president could just decide to do some of it and not all of it, that would give him a so-called item veto.  And so far as I know, we do not have an item veto.  Now of course there is a lot of leeway in how the president implements the budget.  A pentagon project, 50 people in the DEA, lots of adjustments.  But they are adjustments.  Not wholesale deletions.  If that is what he wants he does that during budget time. .  It all has to be in accordance with the intent of congress.  It all has to be more or less in good faith.  Is that what we are seeing here with Trump?  Good faith?  No, certainly not.  

So why hasn't the courts put a stop to this nonsense?  Specifically, why hasn't the Supreme Court put a stop to this?

You know why.  The Supreme Court is filled with corrupt right wingers who are installing an authoritarian government in America.  If I am wrong, the Supreme Court will act at once.  

But it wont.

Maybe too busy fishing?

Research in Visual Effects Practice & Technology

I am writing a monograph based on a course I taught in the previous century at NYU.  Maybe it will never get done (likely) or maybe it will be self-published on the internet (also likely) or maybe it will even become a book.  Who knows.  But since things will be written down, it makes sense to try and research it and see if I know what I am talking about.

The course/book is a study guide to visual effects, talking about the use of the different technologies as they evolved and in context.  Its about other things as well related to animation and visual effects.  I have lots of eccentric opinions and colorful anecdotes, some of which may even be true.  It turns out a lot of what I have picked up over the years is highly debatable or at least there are other stories out there.  

What kind of things am I talking about?  Here are two examples.  One of the great scenes in film from 1949 is the Ferris wheel meeting between Harry Lime and Holly Martins in The Third Man.  Another is a big chunk of the start of Lost Horizon that takes place in what is supposed to be a DC-2 over the Himalayas.  In both cases, I am pretty sure they built a set of the interior that would make it easier to shoot, sent a photographer out to shoot some plates, and then shot the hero sequences using (probably) rear screen projection of the exterior footage. In the latter case, shooting in a real DC-2 high over the mountains would be cramped, noisy, cold and difficult to light. Your actors would hate you and besides you would have to do the sound again later. So I am pretty comfortable that something like I describe here happened.  But it would be nice to know.

The Third Man and Lost Horizon are famous films and I may be able to find a book or article about production and it may have what I need. There may also still exist an actual shooting script from the production which is a very different thing from what purports to be scripts on the Internet.  My hope was that there would be Am. Cinematographer articles is not working out because it was only in the mid-late 70s that Am Cine started doing articles on things like this.  There may be old Cinefex's that go over classic films.  The Academy Library has a great collection of "oral histories" which are available.  They have interviewed a lot of interesting people over the years.  That is lucky because most of the people who worked on these films are no longer with us.

My guess is that there is no general solution, but just a lot of research to do in different places for the different films.  5 Million Years to Earth (the Hammer version) will not have the same sort of sources as Fantastic Voyage.  So I think I just have to tough it out, baby.  In some cases, I am just going to have to rely on surmise and deduction and document it as that.

I think this is going to take years.

AI and the Judaic Concept of the Soul

I asked the free version of Perplexity's AI if Judaism has the concept of a soul.  Here is what it said: 

Yes, Judaism has a well-developed concept of the soul, which is central to its understanding of human existence and spirituality. The soul in Jewish thought is multifaceted and has evolved over time, influenced by biblical texts, rabbinic teachings, and mystical traditions.

Key Concepts of the Soul in Judaism:

1. Terminology and Structure:

   • The Hebrew terms for the soul include nefesh (associated with physical life), ruach (spirit or emotional life), and neshamah (the higher, divine aspect). In Kabbalistic thought, additional levels are recognized: chayah (life force) and yechidah (essence or unity with God)^[1][2][3].

   • These levels represent a ladder-like connection between the physical and spiritual realms, with the nefesh being closest to the body and the neshamah closest to God^[1][3].

2. Creation and Divine Connection:

   • The soul is described as originating from God’s breath, as seen in Genesis: “And G d breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7)^[3].

   • According to rabbinic tradition, all souls were created during the six days of Creation and are stored until they are assigned to a body at birth^[2][4].

3. The Relationship Between Body and Soul:

   • Judaism views the body and soul as separate but interdependent partners. The body is not seen as a prison for the soul but as its medium for spiritual growth and moral action^[5][4].

   • Sleep is considered a temporary separation of body and soul, while death marks their permanent separation^[4].

4. Afterlife and Immortality:

   • Post-biblical Judaism developed beliefs in the immortality of the soul, resurrection of the dead, and an afterlife where the soul continues its existence^[6][4].

   • The soul is believed to undergo a journey after death, including stages of mourning for the body and eventual spiritual elevation^[2][7].

5. Moral Responsibility:

   • The soul is seen as responsible for moral discernment and spiritual development. It navigates between inclinations toward good (yetzer tov) and evil (yetzer hara’)^[5].

In summary, Judaism’s concept of the soul encompasses its divine origin, multifaceted nature, partnership with the body, moral responsibilities, and its journey beyond physical life. These ideas reflect a blend of biblical teachings, rabbinic interpretations, and mystical insights.

⁂

1. https://aish.com/what-is-the-judaisms-view-of-the-soul/

2. https://aish.com/what-is-the-soul/

3. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-Is-a-Soul-Neshamah.htm

4. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/body-soul/

5. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13933-soul

6. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-spirituality-and-the-soul/

7. https://www.dorsheitzedek.org/divrei-torah/rabbi-toba-spitzer?post_id=934460

Pictures from Tesla Showroom in Santa Monica

The following pictures were taken at the Tesla showroom in Santa Monica by Tom McMahon.  We are all so terribly f*cked here in the country formerly known as the USA.

No Longer a Democrat

After Schumer caved to the Republicans and passed the CR and validated Trump and Musk's destruction of the American Republic, I transferred my affiliation from the Democratic Party to Independent.

But the reality is that all the checks and balances failed.  Trump / Musk do whatever they want and ignore the courts.  Not that the courts are doing a very good job here.  But even so, Musk and many Republican congressman are firm in their belief that even these pathetic attempts to enforce the constitution will be destroyed.

As a citizen, I have zero power to do anything about this.  Its annoying to have the failure of the system and my impotence thrown in my face like this.

Speech by Malhuret Before the French Senate

[Note to my readers:  I think this is what the self-appointed censors of the Internet refer to as "hate speech".  In other words, a clear effort to support democracy and fight tyranny.  Be warned.]

A transcript of Malhuret’s full speech, via the French Senate:

https://www.independants-senat.fr/post/claude-malhuret-situation-en-ukraine-et-s%C3%A9curit%C3%A9-en-europe

Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,

Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.

Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.

This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.

The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.

Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.

This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.

I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.

Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.

Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.

And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.

The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.

What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.

This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.

Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.

At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.

Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.

The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.

Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.

This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.

Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.

Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.

Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.

It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.

The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.

Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.

But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.

We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.

They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.

They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.

Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.

The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.

But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.

The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.

Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.

The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.

Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.

John Galt 1948-2025

My friend John Galt has passed away. 

His obituary is at the following link and a jpeg of it included below.

https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/john-galt-1092739989

Some other time I will discuss the wacky project we did with SONY and Disney and HDTV.  Somehow and for some reason I got a trip to Disney's studio tour in Florida a month before it opened.  John and I travelled together.

I am glad I took the opportunity to contact John perhaps 6-9 months ago to apologize for something that happened long ago when I  lost my mind.  Do not fail to sleep for months on end, I note to myself, as you do not always present your best side.

Let this also be a lesson to those who may read this post: if you have something to say to  someone, say it now, even if they appear healthy, you never know.  I am happy I reached out to John when I did.

Why Hasnt Elon Musk Been Sanctioned by Tesla?

Why hasn't Elon Musk been sanctioned by his shareholders?

"If a CEO is found to have intentionally destroyed shareholder value, they could face legal action from shareholders through a shareholder derivative lawsuit, potentially leading to personal liability, fines, or even removal from their position. The board of directors is responsible for overseeing the CEO's actions and can take steps to remove them if they believe the CEO is not acting in the best interests of the shareholders."  according to Google.

I suspect its another example of the failure of the so-called capitalist or market system.

Preferred Smashed Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients as modified from NY Times (see below).

¾ cup chocolate chips
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup unsalted butter (if salted dont add so much salt)
2  tbsp ground flaxseed 
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar

3 tbsp of plain Greek yogurt
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup/90 all-purpose flour
1 Espresso or strong coffee

- Preheat oven to 350F

- Make eggs from ground flaxseed .  1 tbsp flaxseed to 3 tbsp water per "egg".  Let stand for at least 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

- Melt butter 

- Add butter to bowl with chocolate chips, espresso and cocoa powder.  The butter needs to be hot enough to melt the chocolate and/or use the microwave. Stir the mixture until glossy & smooth. 

- In a separate bowl, add sugars, yogurt and eggs.  Use mixer if you have one. 

- Add vanilla & chocolate slowly and then add the flour.  Use spatula to mix. The dough should be glossy and resemble brownie dough

- Distribute 2 tbsp per cookie, two inches apart, on parchment paper

- Cook for 8 or so minutes, pound baking sheets on table to  cause dough to settle, then cook another 6=8  minutes.  The recipe calls for less baking time, but I found that to result in a gooey cookie, too gooey.

  

- Let cool on sheets for at least 3 minutes

Taken and modified from the NY Times at:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1025868-chewy-brownie-cookies