•  SHORT TERM MEMORY LAPSE IS A COMMON AND FRUSTRATING PART OF LIFE – elusive names, misplaced phones, forgetting why we went upstairs or opened a drawer, and so forth. A four step process can help by encoding information in the brain:          (1) Focusing attention by repeating or imagine handwriting the name or purpose; (2) Organizing how it fits into your world – like who the person works for, where lives, or how an item fits into next step; (3) Understanding – like how to pronounce the name or purpose; (4) Relating this to something you already know (e.g. ‘David’ associated with a slingshot of David & Goliath.) Example: Where I left the phone?  Focus on actions when setting it down/  Organize location by looking at what else is around it/  Understand why you picked that location/  Relate to where you’ll be when next needing it.  Article also includes steps for retrieving Long-Term memory.    https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-get-better-at-remembering-names-and-shopping-lists
  • ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS are essentially “black boxes that pose an ‘extinction-level threat’ to the human species,” according to a report commissioned by the U.S. State Department. Reality is that even AI researchers admit they “still don’t understand precisely how the technology actually works, and that even if they resolve the ‘alignment problem’ of super-intelligent deep learning models – making sure these don’t become world-destroying monster bots – there will still be problems for someone or some government to fix. As AI models are being jammed into every device we use, despite the technology’s shortcomings, the lack of regulation which will need to come from policymaking with global coordination is shockingly blasé.” The CEO of OpenAI (who first developed AI along with Elon Musk) has repeatedly warned about the risks of artificial intelligence, and now suggests that “perhaps the AI itself will be so smart that it will just figure out how to rein itself in.”  [EDITION.CNN.COM – 12/5/24]
  • WHY IS THE LEFT THROWING A TANTRUM ABOUT DOGE, the new Dep’t of Government Efficiency?  Because it is recognition that the “false gods they’ve erected in Washington DC, with acolytes, mandates, proclamations and directives are about to be torn down, and that they could lose governmental control to people who won’t worship the delusional movement of transgenderism, unrestricted abortion, allowing biological males into female sports or their bathrooms, fanatical edicts about what type of appliances one may own or cars they may drive, or that federal education funding could be removed from school districts that don’t acquiesce. The Marxist Left acolytes seek to undermine the Judeo-Christian God of faith & religion, and replace it with their false god of government where homage is paid with taxpayer dollars.” Recall that the whole concept of Church vs State was intended to preclude our government from ever creating a state-sponsored religion – which was a response to King Henry VIII who, when denied a divorce by the Catholic church, formed his own ‘religion’ and persecuted those who did not worship him as both Head of State and Church. [TOWNHALL, ALLEN WEST – 12/9/24]
  • “PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT THINK IN TERMS OF BUREAUCRATIC FIEFDOMS, and the budget of any fiefdom is in a different universe than that of any other. In theory, tax dollars would be allocated to best benefit the American people, with priorities evaluated and limited resources distributed based on sound (or not-so-sound) judgments of how to best meet those priorities. Reality, however,  is that political considerations treat each pot of money as independent of all the others. And, as a practical matter, bureaucrats in charge of any one pot are determined to get as much of the available cash plus deficit spending away from the other pots of money. Is it any wonder that no sane person takes ‘fact checks’ about spending seriously?”  [HOT AIR – 12/9/24]
  •                         THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:
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—- Federal tax dollars at ‘work’: Two years after the pandemic, some 94% of full-time federal employees still work remotely, and excluding security guards & maintenance personnel, the number who show up in person and do 40 hours of work weekly is closer to 1%. Average occupancy rate in countless government buildings is currently 12%.  [PATRIOT POST – 12/6/24]

—- Good news for small commercial tenants in California beginning 2025: The new Commercial Tenants Protection Act provides that new leases or renewals preclude landlords from charging building operating cost pass-throughs without providing substantiated documentation, and limited to 18 months prior or anticipated 12 months forward, along with advance notice of 30 days for increases up to 10% or 90 days if larger. Qualifying businesses need fewer than six employees, ten if restaurants, and up to 21 for non-profits.

 —- An Irish university study of dog heart beats found that ‘stress’ levels in canines are directly affected by how much stress their owners are feeling, since their excellent sense of smell allows sensing the pheromones which humans release under stress. Responsive behaviors include lip licking, panting, restlessness and poor-quality sleep, all of which can be detrimental to a dog’s health.