There, I said it.

I’m not sure if that’s how it works but we did take a stand about not participating in the ICC back in the 50s because we didn’t want to be held accountable over Jim Crow laws.

But back to how it works. If I recall correctly, Putin can’t leave Russia because the ICC has issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Ukraine. Any country that is a signatory to the ICC can arrest him.

The ICC doesn’t have the power to change our constitution or impeach Trump. It doesn’t appear to have any power at all within the borders of our country. Outside our borders is a different matter where it poses a threat to international criminals. The US is rapidly losing influence on the international stage and while the ICC can’t change our laws inside our country, there is absolutely nothing Trump can do to prevent the ICC from exerting its power everywhere else it is recognized.

It’s like Glinda the good witch telling the wicked witch of the west, “You have no power here. Be off before someone drops a house on you.” and if there is one thing that Trump can’t abide is anyone holding him accountable for anything. I’m sure his tantrum against the ICC will gain traction among his die hard base and other people who don’t actually understand what the ICC is. But the rest of us would be just hunky dory if the ICC arrested him while he’s being the obnoxious guest at NATO summits. It should be significant that the last NATO summit was held in Turkey. The NATO countries who do not recognize the ICC are the US and Turkey.

But how would that affect Trump? Why would the ICC might like to pick him up on an international warrant? It should be significant that regardless of Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the ICC, it has kept Putin in Russia for almost five years now.

Maybe this has something to do with Trump shaking his tiny fist at the ICC :

That’s been posted several times in an Epstein thread on Bluesky. It sounds like a recent decision. I can just imagine how that went down in the White House that Trump is at this very moment turning into a fortified bunker.

Or maybe Trump will be accused of war crimes over the bombing of small boats off the coast of Venezuela and the stealing of its oil revenue.

You know, the White House is recognized around the world as a symbol of American power. But at this point in time? I’d be ok with plowing it under if Trump thinks he can hold it hostage so he doesn’t get thrown out of office and into jail.

It is a symbol but we have others. It’s been destroyed before. It can be replaced. Leaving it standing now with Trump camping out in it while he torches everything around him would send the wrong message. He doesn’t get to decide who he’s accountable to. He’s only president as long as we say so.

Real power resides in people who know their patriotism and honor is not wrapped up in a flag or a white house.

Bring in the bulldozers and give Trump a one way ticket to the Netherlands on his private Qatari jet.

Plus, I doubt that ultra wealthy people know what life is like for average people. Wasn’t it the Buddha who grew up wealthy and privileged whose eyes were open to suffering once he left his palaces?

So, what if the people who think they control all of the gold, our modern day dragons sitting on a mountain of riches, never leave their hoard?

First of all, do we think that it’s important to them that they don’t have any concept of what it’s like to live in a hyper vigilant state where you are always a couple paychecks from insolvency and bankruptcy? Supposedly, dragons have anxiety about maintaining their hoard and getting more of it. There’s a word for that – Pleonexia. Sounds like a Greek goddess living on a utopian island that she imagines is being eroded by the sea. Pleonexics need therapy.

Anyway, back to the control state. There are plenty of countries in the world where the residents don’t have any safety net at all. I can almost hear the pleonexics lecturing us that we we should be grateful for what we have worked so hard for. We should dive into that idea that even if we work hard, we can always work harder. Where did THAT narrative come from? 15th century England?

Speaking of 15th century England, after the plague ripped across Europe and labor became scarce, the aristocrats started to resent having to actually pay people more and compete for their skills. They put a ceiling on how much a peasant or builder or artisan could make. They eliminated competition- forcefully.

That feels strangely familiar to me who has more in common with Gen X than the Boomers. It feels like my entire career had a monetary cap on it and once that safety net I paid for all my working life got to look like an expense to the pkeonexics who had been maniacally motivated to divest itself of any obligations, well, that had to be stopped. How much money would I have in savings if the financiers with a gambling addiction hadn’t crashed the economy on a global game of craps and decided people like me should sacrifice ourselves with years of dwindling savings, under employment, few and far between promotions and stingy raises?

In some countries, the wealthy don’t have do care about that. They will try to convince us that health is overrated and retirement is a thing of the past. Resistance is useless. You will be assimilated.

But here’s the thing. The past is also chock full of eras where the playing field was evened and it wasn’t that long ago here in this country when the malefactors of great wealth lost control. It can be done. Our predecessors were able to do it.

We aren’t Bangladesh.

Otherwise? He didn’t exactly cover himself in glory.

Lindsey Graham (1955-2026)

Mitch McConnell (1942-2026, probably)

They both died (allegedly for Mitch) from sudden cardiac arrest. Coincidence?

Or is there a pattern?

Republican senators – check

From southern states – check

Toadies of Trump – check, check

Ruthless movement conservatives – check

I can’t wait for someone to write a procedural mystery. The list of possible suspects will be massive.

I apologize for not being sentimental.

But if I were a Rick Scott or John Boozman, I’d make an appointment with my PCP.

Or not. It’s probably nothing.

Update: Oooo, he just got back from Kyiv, Ukraine. Interesting.

Question: Has an ayatollah put out a fatwa on anyone? Lindsey might have been on an Iranian hit list. Like I said, there are millions of people around the world who have motives.

Have the Russians (or Ukrainians) decided to take matters into their own hands?

Or maybe it was just cholesterol.

You get your knickers in a twist over an artistic decision by the Director to cast Helen as a beautiful black woman, which is inaccurate and distracting but whatever, Helen only shows up briefly to put her guests into a trance during a dinner her husband throws upon her return. Nice party trick.

But you’re not at all bothered by the fact that Athena spends half her time in the epic disguised as Mentor, a wise male advisor to Telemachus. You know, like someone slipped a glug of testosterone into her ambrosia? So is Athena going to grow a pair like Homer wrote or will this be another artistic decision to leave the trans part out?

Just askin’ kweschuns.

By the way, this is what Helen looked like to the ancient Romans in Pompeii:

Director Christopher Nolan must have known there were art works from the classical period that showed what Romans and Greeks thought she looked like. The Black Room fresco was only discovered in the last couple of years but still time enough for the casting to be consistent with the epic. He chose to put aside our preconceived notions of what Helen looked like and made an artistic decision to cast a different look for a character who has a very small part in a sweeping epic. That’s his right as a director to tell the story as he sees it or wants you to see it.

In a way, Homer is telling us that in the end, Helen was just a bit player in her own story, the original MacGuffin.

I’ve read The Odyssey a couple of times. It’s not a hard book by any stretch. If you’re into a tale of a clever man, done in by his giddy return home, a boy growing into a man in search of his father, a strong willed faithful wife, and an epic climax (literally), check out these translations. The epic is very good as an audio book.

The Odyssey by:

Fitzgerald- this is the one the classics majors read. Readable and captures many of the Greek epithets.

Fagles – I have this more modern translation and love the poetic feel of it. After all, it was a spoken tale for hundreds of years before it was written down. It’s read by Ian McKellen on audible.

Butler: This one is free on YouTube. Very accessible. It reads like Kidnapped by Stevenson. Easy to listen to but more Americanized.

Wilson: This one is brand new by Emily Wilson. As many things done by women, it’s controversial. So I bought it with one of my credits on audible, it’s read by Claire Danes. The reviews compare it to Fitzgerald but with more of the meter of Fagles. The right wing will automatically hate it. BFD.

Fry: Actor Stephen Fry has his own translation. Who knew?? And he reads it. Very highly rated on audible.

Wait. Isn’t he at the NATO summit? And doesn’t Putin hate NATO? Jeez, Putin is losing the war in Ukraine. Crimea is almost cut off. That must really piss him off. Putin’s the kind of guy who isn’t going to give a piece of stolen territory up without kicking some trash cans and knocking old ladies over on the way out. He has to get even somehow. He’s got to show those effing Europeans that he still has power to mess with them.

But how?

Has anyone checked the call logs between Trump and Putin lately? Maybe Vlad and Donald had a chat. You know, he reminds Trump about what losers these effete frogs and poseurs these guys are. They’re giving Trump the cold shoulder. Trump! The ultimate winner. He’s got more power than god but he has to put up with this sh*t from NATO.

I don’t know about you, Donald, but I’d make them pay for that.

Make them all pay.

Belarus has been making money off of this crisis lately. Russia sends its fuel to Belarus for refining and Lukashenko has taken this opportunity to squeeze a profit out of Russia that is quickly losing its own refining capacity to Ukrainian drones. Suddenly Lukashenko is saying nice things about Zelenskyy and not allowing Putin to use Belarusian territory to lob missiles at Ukraine. Zelenskyy threatened him to stay out of it. Maybe Lukashenko’s refineries are next. .

Ukraine is about a third of the way through its 40 day push. It’s using longer range drones to hit refineries in Russia as well as sending drones over Moscow and other western cities in Russia. The lifespan of an average Russian soldier once they get to the front line is about 10 days if they’re lucky. The soldiers are starting to say nyet.

Recently, Putin has shut down access to the internet on mobile phones in Moscow. I thought this was to prevent Ukrainian agents who might have infiltrated Moscow from coordinating. Or who knows, maybe drones are coordinating. Ukrainians are wicked smart. But it turns out that Putin doesn’t want muscovites talking to their friends about how badly Putin has bungled the war in case they all get angry enough to protest and topple the government.

The NATO summit is this week. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on THAT wall. Recently, I’ve read somewhere that Trump is a little more friendly towards Zelenskyy. Maybe he had more cards than he was letting on. The consensus is that Putin is losing the war. It’s too early to say when it will collapse. But there is no longer any doubt that he’s going to lose. He may pull out all the stops before he goes and he’s shaking his spears at Finland and the Baltics now. Poland? Ironically, has turned on Ukraine. Their recently elected president may be working for Putin.

If Putin falls, many of his puppet leaders and stealth political movements around the world will probably fall with him like Victor Orban fell a couple months ago. See if you can spot any nervous looking US or UK politicians. Nigel Farage is feeling some heat in the UK.

The Russian world order is going down. Let’s see if it takes Trump with it.

Here’s what I think:

I started to work with the AI agent at work in the past year. At first I tried some simple things like asking it to do tedious Microsoft office tasks.

Then I started telling it that I used to be a senior research investigator in a R&D field and I developed methods. I won’t go into too much detail. The thing about how my brain works is when it gets a problem, it jumps through the steps relatively quickly and I can create prototypes with various bits of applications I have sitting around. It’s a lot of fun.

But when it comes time to actually code so it becomes its own entity without the chewing gum, duct tape and shell scripting, my brain goes, “no effing way I’m doing that”. So I would turn over my method to someonewho could code and THEY would do that.

It’s not that I’ve never taken programming languages. I’ve taken three. But if you don’t do it everyday, you have to start learning the rules every single time and I have yet to find some coder who can answer the questions I have that will let my brain get over the activation barrier. It’s just not my brain’s cup of tea. The methods worked great when someone else did that.

I don’t do R&D work anymore. I’m in another area altogether. I soon realized that getting the AI agent to do Office crap was really boring. But I had questions about my work that seemed more like problem solving, model building and methods development. That’s when my relationship with AI took off.

It’s still the same scenario. I have a problem and I can see where I want to go with it but I don’t want to code it. Voilé! Now I can have it do all that stuff. Then we work through my ideas together. That’s a lot more fun.

So here is my first take on the matter: if you’re using AI to sort your mail or write your replies, eventually you will be replaced unless you have some rare talent that a company needs. If you’re looking to AI to do straightforward repetitive documentation giving it an intelligent prompt. It will take AI longer to replace you. If you have an idea and you use AI as a tool to help you build something, it will take a lot, lot longer for AI to replace you.

AI cannot come up with its own ideas. It doesn’t have curiosity. And it can’t think like humans do. Yet. It can give you eerie answers and you can spit ball random ideas to it and it will show you how to make a dashboard. It can gather research in a heartbeat. It can tell you the pros and cons of a certain approach. But it can’t come up with anything original on its own. Yet.

I feel badly for the Amazon workers who think their jobs are more efficient but boring now. And I feel badly for all of us who watch foreign films with AI generated subtitles that are frustrating so many translators who say it’s getting the nuances wrong and, once again, making their jobs boring.

What I see in the future is something of an explosion in arts, crafts and finely made things as displaced workers really start working on what used to be hobbies. There will be a William Morris 2.0. And who knows, maybe they’ll come back to AI to do measuring and spatial renderings. Maybe we’ll get a new generation Thomas Hardy’s writing about the transition and cultural upheaval.

In the here and now, your best strategy is to stay curious, open and playful. I know that sounds crazy but having a playful attitude with it will serve you soooo much better than refusing to let it do what it does best. Those of us who are waiting for our colleagues to just let AI help them are starting to lose patience. We’re getting a little borg like. They will be assimilated. (We’re kidding of course.)

The one thing they should have been fearful of is the lack of regulation and their loss of privacy. That’s a political question that they either didn’t see coming or didn’t take as seriously as they should have.

Some of our coworkers are luddites. There doesn’t seem to be anything we can say that will make their anxiety go away. They fear it and refuse to use it to their advantage. And we can’t get in their way and have the agent do the work in less than half the time while they struggle. They have to decide for themselves if they want to keep the rest of us waiting or if their salaries are not worth the investment.

But someone is going to notice. Who are we fooling? The powers that be are already aware of who’s picking up what AI agent is putting down and who is dragging their feet. It’s going to be the same people as it always is that get hurt, that can survive, can thrive to some extent and exploit everyone else to make billions.

The exploitative profit miners are not thinking about what happens to the non-playing characters. It’s not going to be pretty. Fortunately, there are AI agents that can help us think through what happens next.

There’s a reason why Democratic Socialists are on the rise. It’s not just because they fight back. It’s because they aren’t going to be indentured by the wealthy anymore for healthcare, higher education, and family leave policies.

This fall we throw the Republicans out. Set your mind to it and keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t get distracted or discouraged. November will be awesome.

Go out and celebrate July 4th in your own state. Do it noisily. Get some fireworks. After all, we weren’t officially the United States of America until 1787. Until then, we were states sticking together to uphold our unalienable rights and get rid of the king and his minions.

Ne te a nebulonibus DC conterant.

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