Unless It Is First Known

The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good.  For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Italian Renaissance painter, architect, inventor, scientist, and sculptor, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883) XIX Philosophical Maxims.  Morals.  Polemics and Speculations

RIP Ted Turner

If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect.

-- Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (19 November 1938 - 6 May 2026), American media mogul and philanthropist, known as founder of the Cable News Network more popularly known as CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, and for his $1 billion gift to support the United Nations, as quoted in "At Long Last, He's Citizen Ted", Forbes (30 January 2003)

Three Things

To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things.  It must believe in the past.  It must believe in the future.  It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), 32nd President of the United States, Remarks at the Dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York (30 June 1941)

587,328 Hours

587,328 hours of life (67 years) so far.  On Sunday the family gathered for a birthday dinner. I've got business plans and martial arts plans, and maybe I'll make time for other plans as well.

I'm looking forward to another busy year full of adventures. 

A Vast Bazaar

Literature is a vast bazaar where customers come to purchase everything except mirrors.

-- James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958), American author of satirical fantasy works, The Certain Hour (1916) "Auctorial Induction"

Suit His Temper

He is happy, whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent, who can suit his temper to any circumstances.

-- David Hume (1711 - 1776), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) § 6.9 : Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves, Pt. 1

Other Side Of The Hill

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called "guessing what was at the other side of the hill."

-- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852), British soldier and statesman, he led the victorious Anglo-Allied forces against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, Remarks to John Wilson Croker and Croker's wife (4 September 1852), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. III (1884), p. 276

They're Back

Well, they're back.  This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina Beach a year ago, and this won't be the end of it.  But nothing has changed with me.  I'm still innocent,  I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.  So let's go. 

But it's really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country.  This is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be.  And the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values.  Keep the faith.

-- Former government person James Comey, in a video posted to his Substack responding to a felony indictment alleging that Comey did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States, based upon a 2025 social media post of an image of seashells (28 April 2026)

In Short

In short, it is possible to demonstrate that (a) many people support positions or political forces that violate their own professed interests, and (b) many people profess interests that violate their actual well-being.

-- Michael Parenti (30 September 1933 - 24 January 2026), American political scientist, historian, and media critic, Contrary Notions (2007) Ch. 5, Section 20: False Consciousness

The Great Dance

When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.

-- Hermann Karl Hesse (1877 - 1962), German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter, 1946 Nobel laureate in Literature, Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) Chapter 10

Crooked Timber

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

-- Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), German philosopher, Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6

Efficacy

A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency's flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.  The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.

The report, which had cleared the agency's scientific-review process, had been delayed.  It now won't be published at all, people familiar with the decision told The Post.

-- Lena H. Sun, writing for the Washington Post, "CDC won't publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits" (22 April 2026)

Far Worse

An ever-expanding capitalism and a fragile, finite ecology are on a calamitous collision course.  It is not true that the ruling politico-economic interests are in a state of denial about this.  Far worse than denial, they are in a state of utter antagonism toward those who think the planet is more important than corporate profits.

-- Michael Parenti (30 September 1933 - 24 January 2026), American political scientist, historian and media critic, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997) Anything But Class: Avoiding the C-Word, p. 156

Hopelessly Confused

If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused.

-- Walter "Fritz" Mondale (1928 - 2021), American politician, diplomat, and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the US from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter, as quoted by Ann Landers, in The Poughkeepsie Journal (26 March 1978)

Unserious Leaders

Unserious leaders are unsafe.  There is nothing more serious than our leaders’ dedication to the rule of law so that we might maintain the integrity of our constitutional democracy.  This case highlights a leader’s unserious regard for the rule of law.  This case demonstrates how disregard for the rule of law does not merely result in an abstract infraction.  Rather, and tragically, this case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader’s wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.

This Court can and does judge the lawfulness of the process (or lack thereof) by which any policy choice might be made.  Here, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., unlawfully issued a declaration threatening to cut federal funding to medical providers who provided gender-affirming care to minors.  If such a declaration could have been enacted lawfully, there might have been ample time and opportunity for medical providers, families, and children -- all people and institutions of our great nation -- to seek out other alternatives and options.  Secretary Kennedy’s utter failure to promulgate rules in accordance with statutory authority, but instead threaten to cease federal funding to medical providers almost immediately after the declaration, caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation.  Secretary Kennedy’s unlawful declaration harmed children.  This case illustrates that when a leader acts without authority and in the absence of the rule of law, he acts with cruelty.

-- US District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai (he/him), ruling against limitations on gender affirming care in Oregon v Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr (18 April 2026)

I Don't Doubt

"I don't doubt you're serious," he said wonderingly.  "What I doubt is your sanity."

-- Larry Niven (30 April 1938 -), American science fiction author, A Gift From Earth (1968) Chapter 14, "Balance of Power" (p. 246)

Woe To Those

Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.

-- Pope Leo XIV, posting on Twitter as @Pontifex (16 April 2026)

Great Fault

It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.

-- Anthony Trollope (1815 - 1882), successful and prolific English novelist of the Victorian era, Phineas Finn (1869) Chapter 13

Understandable And Clear

Dear friends, the election result is not final yet, but it is understandable and clear.  The election result is painful for us, but clear.  The responsibility of governing was not given to us.  I have congratulated the winner.

-- Hungarian Prime Minister and Trump ally Viktor Orban conceding to opposition candidate Peter Magyar, whose party won two-thirds of seats in parliament, ending Orban's 16-year rule (12 April 2026)

A Tautology

A good poem is a tautology.  It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken.  The seed-word is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it.  Classical odes grow from "and" or "because", romantic lyrics from "but" or "if".  Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb.

-- Alasdair James Gray (1934 - 2019), award-winning Scottish writer and artist, Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983) "Prometheus", pp. 208-9

An Exception

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

-- William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830), English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823) No. 305

People With Control

People with real power never fear of losing it.  People with control think of little else.

-- Joseph "Joss" Hill Whedon (1964 -), American screenwriter, film and television director and producer, "Mom, He's Doing It Again..", at Whedonesque.com (10 November 2007)

Stubborn

Facts are stubborn things.

-- Tobias George Smollett (1721 - 1771), Scottish novelist, translator, historian, and editor, Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1

A Thin Red Line

There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.

-- James Jones (1921 - 1977), American author, The Thin Red Line (1962) "Old midwestern saying" created by Jones for his story, as stated in James Jones: An American Literary Orientalist Master (1998) by Steven R. Carter

Pulling Us Back

From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration.  We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear.  But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.

-- CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II test flight around the Moon, traveling 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the record for human spaceflight's farthest distance previously set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 (6 April 2026)

Family Vacation

The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Paris France (1970), p. 107

Authoritarianism And Secrecy

Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other.  It's a vicious cycle.  Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.

-- Josh Marshall (1969 -), American political journalist and blogger, Talking Points Memo (17 January 2006)

Artemis II

NASA's Artemis II is the first crewed mission of the Artemis program and will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day mission around the Moon and back to Earth. 

The first crewed deep-space flight in over 50 years, Artemis II is expected to send the crew farther from Earth than any previous human mission, potentially breaking the record of about 248,655 miles (400,171 km) from Earth set by Apollo 13 during its lunar free-return trajectory.  This milestone will occur during the lunar flyby phase, when the crew travels on a free-return trajectory around the Moon, which allows the spacecraft to loop around the Moon and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit. 

During the test flight, NASA will test life-support systems and critical operations in deep space, paving the way for future lunar landings and Mars exploration. 

-- Jason Costa at Nasa.gov, "LIVE: Artemis II Launch Day Updates" (1 April 2026)

Arrogance Of Power

Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations -- to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image.  Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence.  Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work.

I do not think that America's greatness is questioned in the world, and I certainly do not think that strident behavior is the best way for a nation to prove its greatness.  Indeed, in nations -- as in individuals -- bellicosity is a mark of weakness and self-doubt rather than of strength and self-assurance.

-- J. William Fulbright (1905 - 1995), American politician, academic, and statesman, US Senator from Arkansas from 1945 until 1974, The Arrogance of Power (1966)

Lifeguard Redux

Yesterday, for perhaps the last time, I got recertified as a lifeguard with the Red Cross.  Since it was a recertification, there was very little new training.  It was a brief review, followed by testing out in Water Rescue, First Aid, CPR, and AED.  

We started at 8:00 AM and finished just before 4:00 PM, including 3 1/2 hours in the water or on the pool deck demonstrating individual skills and team rescues.  

The training was hosted by the University of Illinois at their Activities & Recreation Center.  The other three trainees are lifeguards for the university, and we all managed to work pretty well together.  I'm pretty sure I'm old enough to be grandfather to any of them.

I'll be 67 in May and certification is good for 2 years, so I have time to decide whether to go through it one more time (when I'll be 69) and stay certified into my early 70s.

Truly Respectable

No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.

-- Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757 - 1804), Founding Father of the United States, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, Federalist No. 62 (26 February 1788)

If You Know

Three steps:  1) Accept what is.  2) Deliver "excellent best" right now.  3) Never quit; win it in the late innings. ...  If you know what's true but do not let that guide you, then you get what you deserve.

-- Robert Forster (1941 - 2019), American actor and TNS member, speaking to a crowd at ggg999, the General Global Gathering of the Triple Nine Society (1 September 2012)

From Whatever Source

One should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds.

-- Moshe ben Maimon (1135 or 1138 - 1204), commonly known as Moses Maimonides, Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher, Foreword to The Eight Chapters Of Maimonides On Ethics, translated by Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Ph.D. (1912), Page 35-36

RIP Robert Mueller

You really don't think about it as you go through it; you just try to do the right thing at the right time.

-- Robert Swan Mueller III (7 August 1944 - 20 March 2026), American attorney who served as the 6th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013 and in 2017 as Special Counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and related matters, interview with Aaron Harber (2015)

Goodhart's Law

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

-- Goodhart's law, named for Charles Albert Eric Goodhart, CBE, FBA (born 23 October 1936), British economist, originally (1975) expressed as "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."

RIP Chuck Norris

Truth is, apart from my mother and Granny, my only role models were the cowboy heroes I saw on the screen.  Each time I walked out of the theater, I felt encouraged by the belief that there were such men.  I determined that I would grow up one day to be like them.  Those cowboy heroes offered a lot to a young boy longing for a male role model to emulate.  Their behavior in their films was governed by the "Code of the West" -- loyalty, friendship, and integrity.  They were unselfish and did what was right even when the risk was great.  Years later I would recall those Western heroes when I developed the kind of character I wanted to play as an actor.

-- Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris Jr (10 March 1940 - 19 March 2026), American martial artist, action star, and Hollywood actor, Against All Odds: My Story (2006), Chapter 4 "A Mother's Love"

Promptware Kill Chain

Attacks against modern generative artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs) pose a real threat.  Yet discussions around these attacks and their potential defenses are dangerously myopic.  The dominant narrative focuses on "prompt injection," a set of techniques to embed instructions into inputs to LLM intended to perform malicious activity.  This term suggests a simple, singular vulnerability.  This framing obscures a more complex and dangerous reality.  Attacks on LLM-based systems have evolved into a distinct class of malware execution mechanisms, which we term "promptware."  In a new paper, we, the authors, propose a structured seven-step "promptware kill chain" to provide policymakers and security practitioners with the necessary vocabulary and framework to address the escalating AI threat landscape.

The promptware kill chain: initial access, privilege escalation, reconnaissance, persistence, command & control, lateral movement, action on objective

The kill chain was already demonstrated.  For example, in the research "Invitation Is All You Need," attackers achieved initial access by embedding a malicious prompt in the title of a Google Calendar invitation.  The prompt then leveraged an advanced technique known as delayed tool invocation to coerce the LLM into executing the injected instructions.  Because the prompt was embedded in a Google Calendar artifact, it persisted in the long-term memory of the user's workspace.  Lateral movement occurred when the prompt instructed the Google Assistant to launch the Zoom application, and the final objective involved covertly livestreaming video of the unsuspecting user who had merely asked about their upcoming meetings.  C2 and reconnaissance weren't demonstrated in this attack.

-- Oleg Brodt, Elad Feldman, Bruce Schneier, Ben Nassi, "The Promptware Kill Chain: How Prompt Injections Gradually Evolved Into a Multistep Malware Delivery Mechanism" (14 January 2026)

Eccentric Enough

People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for morality.

-- Friedrich Schlegel (1772 - 1829), German poet, critic, and scholar, The Athenaeum Fragments (1798 - 1800) or Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (German Athenäums-fragmente), collection of aphorisms published by Schlegel, #414

NovaNET Gathering

This Sunday I had the pleasure of meeting up with many members of the old NovaNET gang.  I'll drop a few names to spark your memories, as Kevin Maxson was in town with his family, and a group gathered at Papa Del's for a couple of hours over lunch.  I joined Kevin & family along with Carl Evans, James Quisenberry & family, Phil Parker, Ray Thomsen, Steve Peltz, Eric Bina, and Peter Enstrom.  Many more names were dropped in conversation, and 25-year-old memories were the talk of the moment.

As Kevin said, "Nothing compares to working with our team on real meaningful and effective CBE stuff.  I loved it."  Me, too.

Scion FR-S 10 Year Anniversary

10 years ago today (16 March 2016) I bought a new, 2015 Scion FR-S from the dealership in Urbana.  Today that car has 249,320 miles on it.  It continues to serve me well as a daily driver.

Early on I used it for autocross and commuting to work at the University of Illinois.  Commuting put 30,000 miles a year on it up until the pandemic.  Annual mileage is around half that now.

In all that time it's been pretty well behaved, needing only regular maintenance plus a new clutch at around 180,000 miles.

My previous car, a 1998 Saturn SC2, made it to 421,000 miles before giving up the ghost.  I don't expect to get that far in the Scion, but here's hoping.

In Conflict

The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment.

-- Bernard d'Espagnat (1921 - 2015), French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality, The Quantum Theory and Reality (November 1979) Scientific American p. 158

Question Asking

In the development of intelligence nothing can be more "basic" than learning how to ask productive questions.  All our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool.

-- Neil Postman (1931 - 2003), American author, educator, media theorist, and cultural critic, Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980) published in ETC Vol. 37 (1980)

Inexhaustible Source

A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations.

-- Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (1792 - 1871), English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, and experimental photographer, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831)

Qualms

To be capable of embarrassment is the beginning of moral consciousness.  Honor grows from qualms.

-- John Leonard (1939 - 2008), American literary, TV, film and cultural critic, Private Lives in the Imperial City (1979) "On Being Embarrassed" (p. 140)

A Child's Understanding

We're marching through the world, we're cleaning out the bad guys, we're gonna have relationships with new people that will make us prosperous and safe.  I've never seen anything, anybody like it, this is Ronald Reagan plus.  Donald Trump is resetting the world in a way nobody could've dreamed of a year ago, he is the greatest commander in chief of all time, our military is the best of all time, Iran is going down, and Cuba is next.

-- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), gleefully celebrating chaos on Fox News (9 March 2026), showing a child's understanding of foreign affairs

Political Capital

Political capital refers to the trust, goodwill, and influence that an individual or group has in the political arena.  It is an intangible asset that can be built through relationships, credibility, and public support, allowing individuals or organizations to leverage their position to achieve political goals.  Political capital is crucial for mobilizing resources, gaining support for initiatives, and influencing policy decisions.

-- Definition of "Political Capital" at AP Human Geography Review from Fiveable 

Your Marionette

Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House.  Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage.  You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world.  What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

-- Garrett M. Graff (born 1981), American journalist and author, "We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower" at wired.com (22 January 2026)

Dangerous For The Strong

The absence of any obstacle to the deployment of strength is dangerous for the strong themselves: passion takes precedence over reason.  "No power without limit can be legitimate," as Montesquieu wrote long ago.  Political wisdom does not consist in seeking only immediate victory, nor does it require systematic preference of "us" over "them."

-- Tzvetan Todorov (1939 - 2017), Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, and essayist, Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century (2003), preface to the English edition (October 2002), p. xxi

Enough Immortality

I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would be enough immortality for me.

-- Edsger Dijkstra (1930 - 2002), Dutch computer scientist, mathematician, software engineer, and essayist, "Introducing a course on calculi" (EWD 1213) (30 August 1995)

No Stupid Rules

America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.  B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and of course classified effects.  All on our terms with maximum authorities.  No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.  We fight to win, and we don't waste time or lives.

-- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a press briefing on the war with Iran (2 March 2026)