Author: North Coast BBQ

Now We Choose

In time we come to know, welcome in our daily lives the understanding that there is no saving grace in misleading or being misled. Deep and real differences may define our families and friendships but we realize there will be no lasting peace in lies and being misled.

Anchoring these times and spaces of our lives, 
we can carefully listen to the voices of ancestors
and the integrity of friends, “Through love alone
will hate be healed.” 

We all know that we have awakened many times before, left behind a season’s ignorance, the restless, uneasy ways of wanting, hate, and fear.

Slowly, we are abandoning the belief that a man or woman can own another, assume or create a relation that does not recognize the inherent rights and dignity of the other.

At work, as in marriage, our communities, and civic relations, this entitlement is now a birthright, an achievement of what is best in all of us. We are awakening, slowly reaching the understanding that war is not sustainable.

The war in Vietnam, the war in Iraq, Gaza, wherever conflict appears, we are coming to know that war profits a very small minority. For too long we have listened to all their lies, the reasons why our sons and daughters must continue to be sacrificed for profit. 

Why it is that those who have had the most for so long, generation after generation, merit further privileges to accumulate more.

There is no saving grace in being misled. We are also awakening to the precious and fragile gift of our freedom, how our voice and how we choose is equal to any other. 

Will it ever be easy to recognize, accept, and release how we have been deceived? Each of us knows a deeply visceral answer to this question.

But as the typhoons come and the tornadoes grow stronger, as species extinction accelerates, and our divorce rates incline, as our coastal cities submerge and our mothers and fathers die of unrelenting heat, we can awaken, recognize 
how we have been used.

What comes to mind when we hear deceitful and barren platforms full of hateful intentions? It is claimed that we should deport millions of men and women, persons who are seeking, as we have sought, a better life, or listening to their insatiable urge for ever deeper extraction with no respect for those who follow.

What comes to mind and must be remembered is a lost and wounded child, a little boy, stepping down from a broken bus, “They just let you do it.” 

May we all be granted the integrity to awaken, resist, and create a new union. Now we choose.

[Stuart Russell is one of the “godfathers of AI”]

“There’s the science budget of the world, and there’s the money we’re spending on AI,” says Russell. “We could have done something useful, and instead we’re pouring resources into this race to go off the edge of a cliff.” He didn’t specify what alternatives, but just two months into the year, roughly $1tn in AI investments have been announced, all while the world is still falling far short of what is needed to stay even within 2C of heating, much less 1.5C.

It seems as if we have a shrinking opportunity to lay down the incentives for companies to create the kind of AI that actually benefits our individual and collective lives: sustainable, inclusive, democracy-compatible, controlled. And beyond regulation, “to make sure there is a culture of participation embedded in AI development in general”, as Eloïse Gabadou, a consultant to the OECD on technology and democracy, put it.

At the close of the conference, I said to Russell that we seemed to be using an incredible amount of energy and other natural resources to race headlong into something we probably shouldn’t be creating in the first place, and which the relatively benign versions of are already, in many ways, misaligned with the kinds of societies that we actually want to live in.

“Yup,” he replied.

Frankly I’m beginning to not care because the world will be better off without the human race. That’s an awful way to feel. -Dave

Let me see if I have the facts straight. Laura had a good friend who was briefly the mayor of Manzanita. There was a city staff complaint during her friend’s tenure. The friend resigned as mayor, at least partially because she no longer lived in Manzanita. Laura was unhappy. Laura went to court to gain access to the city staff complaint in 2023. The court heard from her and her attorneys and then turned her down and dismissed the case. Laura appealed. Again, the court and a different judge said no.

Laura’s post was accusatory and hinted of conspiracy. The facts and the courts’ decisions are simple and clear. I have to wonder which view is frivolous.

Please see the City of Manzanita website for the court judgment on Page 13 of FAQs: ci.manzanita.or.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-01-17-Often-Asked-Questions.pdf

For me, (finally!) cutting the CIA-front USAID and (finally!) closing the border to the cartel human traffickers (children and adults) and the cartel drug traffickers (fentanyl/liquid heroin/cocaine), the appointment of Tulsi as DNI, RFK’s appointment and MAHA, ending the war in Ukraine, and signaling that the new admin WILL NOT be starting a war with Iran, are all great things.

In my view, the Biden admin (obviously, Joe was NOT running the executive branch, it was Barak and Blinken sending Israel the child-killing Gaza bombs, anointing Kamala, etc.) was even worse than the war war war Bush/Cheney Crime Family admins of the early 2000s.

And I am so happy that corrupt crew of war-loving top-level dems are out of power.

But will I be happy for long?

Here are the two BIG GORILLAS that I see, both are addressed in detail by the excellent journalists linked below.

The first gorilla: The siliCON valley totalitarian technocrats, have jumped the Democrat ship, after a most fruitful ride, and are now on the MAGA ship. After spending four years terrorizing the American people using Democrat power, Bezos/Zuckerberg/Thiel/Musk were all onstage with Trump at the inauguration! Could these technofascist billionaires be anymore shameless and transparent?

The second gorilla: The Zionists, who had a field day killing Palestinian children while Zionist Blinken was running State, also have a friend in Trump.

Below are some smart folks detailing the serious dangers within the Trump admin, dangers you won’t hear about on the likes of CNN/MSNBC/NYT/NPR/OPB.

Kim’s interview at 22:00 starts an interesting minute…but it’s all great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7787k0UWkC4

and

rumble.com/v6k3okd-whitney-webbs-take-on-doge-elon-musk-deepseek-ai-and-the-elites.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

minutes 3:30 and 6:00 and 9:00 are all very interesting, as is Whitney’s entire interview.

Andy, Wheeler
🙂