John Drake

I still have two copies of the form from last year. It is making me nervous that this year's hasn't arrived yet. I'll wait some more, but if necessary, I'll just mail in the copies I made last year.

Don't you ever see their "you may have cancer" ads on Facebook. I do all the time.

In a way, you're now seeing a return to the way news was covered during the first half of the twentieth century. Major cities and even larger regions used to have many competing newspapers that didn't hesitate to align with a political party or ideology. And those newspapers would run morning, afternoon, and evening editions, always updating events throughout the day. Not to mention that star columnists the equivalent of the Joe Rogans of today dominated, such as Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson, and Franklin Pierce Adams. Only in the 60s and 70s did American news become homogenized and indistinguishable. Twitter/X in particular is only return to how the press used to operate.

They're dead. Few people bother with them.

By this time last year, I had received and returned the form. Just checked my PO Box and still nothing there from SSA. I sure hope this is not another thing DOGE has screwed up.

These days there's not a dime's worth of difference between Jackson Hinkle and Tucker Carlson. Both mouthpieces for Iran.

Don't like Trump's declarations? Wait a day or two and they'll change. I don't remember who it was who wrote it, but I remember someone saying that Trump doesn't have policies, he has moods.

Why Bhutan? Why not Nepal?

TACO incoming.

Coming soon.

Just for fun, I asked Grok to randomly select one of Trump's recent statements on Iran and rephrase it like a five year old is talking. Here it is. TBH, the five year old rephrasing sounds almost indistinguishable from most Trump commentary. One of Trump's latest remarks on Iran from June 14, 2025, was: “There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.” Rephrased like a five-year-old is saying it: "There's been lots of fighting and bad stuff, but we can stop it if you say yes to a deal, Iran. If you don’t, more fighting’s coming, and it’ll be really, really bad!"

Trump is indeed simple minded, but he isn't inarticulate. Take away the adverb "very," however, and I don't think he can make it through more than one or two sentences. Harris, meanwhile, is inarticulate and floods her speeches with filler, repetitive phrases, and catchwords. Both are low grade intelligences.

That picture was about 30 lbs. ago.

Don't count on it. I have been hearing about an uprising from the Iranian people for over 30 years now. And the mullahs still control things. When they are gone is when Iran will be finished. Tehran was always the most enlightened part of Iran, and when you look at pictures of life under the Shah, with relatively modern, liberal daily life in the country, it was in Tehran. The countryside was where the maniacs were in charge and where they outnumbered urbanites. One of the components of the White Revolution was to take impoverished children from country villages and pay for their education in Western universities. They were supposed to study things like civil and petroleum engineering to make the country stronger. Instead they went into "political economy," studied Marx and Franz Fanon, and came back and tied up with Khomeini. The "students" then found it easier to live out their totalitarian dreams wearing a turban, instead of a red star. I still think the balance of the population is in rural areas. And they are just as mediaeval and benighted now as they were forty or fifty years ago.

Some people are surprised by this, apparently. I don't know why. TACO is true. His two most central issues since he ran for president in 2016 have been illegal immigration and China. And he's sold out on both: he even sold out on the Tik Tok ban he first introduced. Why would anyone expect consistency in anything he does, immigration policy, tariffs, China, North Korea, Iran, or anything else. Look, the country has already been saved from Harris/Walz. They're no longer a threat. The new threat is the semi-functional narcissist Trump. Time to impeach and convict him. Get him out of office before he turns the dollar into Monopoly money.

Come on, Trump. Time to donate 200 F16s and support facilities to the Cambodians for free.

F35s and F16s right now are flying through the skies of Iran like they're doing an air show. Wonder if Cambodia would be interested in some F16s

I'm actually an immigration hardliner. There needs to be a clean out and mass deportations. But it needs to concentrate on the cities. Farm workers and hotels/resorts are the easiest to fix. There is a visa for them already, the H2A. It would be a fairly simple matter to have current illegals do a border run (at the farmers and hoteliers expense) and be processed for their visas. As for the hotel owner (Trump), I think there is an even bigger hotel/casino/resort complex owner behind this, Miriam Adelson.

Makes you wonder what is on/in that property the Chinese bought up around US military bases.

How ready is Iron Beam to deploy and intercept drones with lasers?

Stupid to criticize the Shah. He was over thrown because he was liberalizing Iran and apparently going too fast for the Islamic radicals. And pro-Soviet regimes and opportunists like France decided to support Khomeini. See the White Revolution.

Of course he has. He has no consistency on any issue. Everything is chaos. One minute anti-China, then the next Xi's best friend. Big enforcer against illegals, then he offers this amnesty. And it is an amnesty. You can't just make an exception for farm workers (who already have a valid visa route to word, btw) and hotel staff, and then say no to construction. They'll be next and one domino after another will fall. Before the year is out, everything will be right back to where it was before the ICE raids.

The Shah sure looks better these days. Too bad France propped up khomeini and then helped him take over Iran.

I think I'll stick to returning the form via regular airmail. It's been working fine the past two years.

Why should the Chinese want to come here? The movie that got them started is what? 10 years ago? What is the lure for them? I do think safety is a false concern. The only unsafe place for a tourist is on the road. But why would Chinese rather see Thailand instead of Japan or Vietnam?