• ‘IMAGINE STROLLING DOWN A BUSY STREET AND SNAPPING A PHOTO of a stranger, then uploading it into a search engine that almost instantaneously helps you identify the person. Facial recognition technology isn’t a hypothetical – it’s possible now, thanks to a website called PimEyes, considered one of the most powerful publicly available facial recognition tools online, a formidable tool for internet sleuths and a surveillance tool for stalkers collecting countless images of children and dead people, added to its database without permission… Services copying PimEyes are expected to proliferate in the coming years.”  [SECURE THE VILLAGE – 10/15/23]
  •  THE CHAOS AND DANGER OF TODAY’S ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE’ ACTIVISTS stems from a ludicrous premise and “dominant intellectual paradigm of utter falsehoods, taken as axiomatic rather than ever proven empirically, that people and groups would achieve relatively similar outcomes if it weren’t for the singular factor of ‘discrimination’ by dominant majorities against subordinate minorities…  In reams of social justice literature, there’s not a single example of proportional representation on different groups in endeavors open to competition – in any country in the world today, or at any time over thousands of years of recorded history. History, culture, geography and age all contribute to inequalities we see between groups and people, with past and present discrimination a part of the that equation, as one factor out of many.  Every outcome in the world is a consequence of innumerable variables interacting in a unique way, but most prominent social justice activists in the country – those setting the ‘standard’ for what constitutes proper progressivism – scoff at that.”   [WASHINGTON EXAMINER – 10/10/23] 
  • GIFTS OF UP TO $17,000 PER PERSON BY 12/31/23 have no income or estate tax impact. If paid on behalf of an individual for Educational Tuition (not room/ board/ supplies/ etc.) or for medical expenses, the amount is unlimited. Otherwise, amounts above $17K reduce the Lifetime Exemption, currently just under $13 million per person. If a gift is in the form of assets other than cash, a donee carries forward the donor’s tax basis, reportable if/when the property is disposed of.
  •  THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:   Want a reality check on the progress in transition from oil to green energy?  See the attached analysis.

 “The impacts of how humans may use Artificial Intelligence – from utilizing autonomous weaponry and warbots, to replacing human workers en masse, to a destabilizing proliferation of AI-spun misinformation, are great unknown threats, especially where they pertain to human misuse versus opaque fears of machine-over-human triumph… For the first time ever, humanity must grapple with the reality that something else on our planet is more intelligent than us.”  [FUTURISM]

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington (1793)

 Is “Staggering know-thingism” the reality of today’s young ‘journalists’?  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/rand-paul-rages-at-staggering-media-know-nothingism-covid-cover-up