It’s been 45 days since Adelita Grijalva was elected by the people of Arizona. Mike Johnson is still refusing to swear her in because she’s the final vote for the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.

SUPPLY OF TRANSFORMERS IN A BOTTLENECK IN MAINTAINING U.S. ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION 55% of in-service distribution transformers were more than 33 years old in 2024. We don't make 'em: Imports account for 80% of U.S. power transformer supply and 50% of distribution transformer supply. bit.ly/trF

ELECTRICITY PRICES INCREASE IN U.S. DUE TO POLES AND WIRES, NOT GENERATION? Since 2005, utilities have nearly tripled the amount they spend annually on the network of poles, wires, substations, and transformers that deliver power to customers. bit.ly/3Xgcarz

Tree outside my window in Pittsburgh still smiling this Fall.

This is the kind of investigation James Comer was made for…

One-half of U.S. Imports Are Tariffed www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

TRUMP PARDONS CRYPTO CRIMINAL. BUT HE IS NOT ONE OF TRUMP'S MONKEYS EVEN THOUGH TRUMP RUNS THE CIRCUS “Okay, are you ready?” Trump answered. “I don’t know who he is." www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

WILL ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE MISS YOU? The future? Dystopian? All bottleneck work automated. Growth of computing power determines economic growth. Wages converge to the cost of computing power needed to replace them. Share of labor income in GDP drops to zero. www.nber.org/papers/w34423

“'In a free society, all are involved in what some are doing,' said Abraham Joshua Heschel, an American rabbi." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/o...

Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white then melts forever. -Robert Burns

For anyone facing food insecurity please go to findhelp.org they provide info on food banks (and much more) based on zip code.

Tone deafness personified

www.nbcnews.com/world/africa... 😱😭😞

SUPPORTING TRUMP'S MUTINY 15 months elapsed before the FBI agreed to investigate the ties between Trump and his circle and the deadly Jan 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The Justice Department's herald to pursue evidence "without fear or favor"? Lost. By Garland. By Biden. bit.ly/3JAXuQx

CAUSE & EFFECT? On this date in history: • Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman in the historic Rumble in the Jungle (1974) • Ivanka Trump was born (1981)

Happy Halloween from the GOP

Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick killed a bunch of union workers in Homestead, PA. The workers wanted fair hours and fair wages. The US Government sided with the industrialists. Fun fact: Pittsburgh still reveres mass murderers Carnegie and Frick.

YOUR EXPERIENCE? A.I. cheating by students seems general in response to instruction. “Our students are about to turn subcognitive.” "At stake are not just specialized academic skills or refined habits of mind, but also the most basic form of cognitive fluency." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...

"The average increase in premiums for Affordable Care Act plans will be 26% next year." bit.ly/47wln3W

THE LONESOME DEATH OF HATTIE CARROLL -- FROM AI? "Ah, but you who philosophize disgrace And criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face For now's the time for your tears." ~Bob Dylan, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," www.bobdylan.com/songs/loneso... www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

I'M HENRY, I AM, I AM. The Henry Hub, a distribution hub on the U.S. natural gas pipeline system, is the pricing point for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Great importance for natural gas pricing. rbnenergy.com/daily-posts/...

KRISTI KREME KOMFORT Publicly available government documents indicate the Coast Guard spent at least $172 million on two private jets. Gulfstream advertises the G700 as "THE MOST SPACIOUS CABIN IN THE INDUSTRY." www.snopes.com/fact-check/k...

YOUR MOB ENFORCER SAYS, "PAY UP, OR ELSE!" “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” ~ Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/m...

ZAP! "If you cross that line, throw a stone, you go into jail. You put your hands on an ICE officer, you’re going to jail. You make a threat...you’re going to jail....zero tolerance, you cross that line and move from a protester to a criminal." ~ Tom Homan, Trump’s $50k border czar, fxn.ws/47QAghJ

GET 'EM "There are some really bad actors....And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them, and we will name them. And in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are shamed." ~ Ed Martin, Trump's DOJ pardon attorney, bit.ly/EdMart

GROWTH OF THE EARLY U.S. ECONOMY DEPENDED ON ENSLAVED LABOR In the 1860s, about 1/3 of agricultural workers were enslaved labor, 70% in some southern states, driving economic growth. bit.ly/4huILDr

WALK FASTER....GET THERE....TRY HARDER? Nike announced Project Amplify, “the world’s first powered footwear system”....uses a lightweight robotics system to boost running and walking speed. www.theverge.com/news/805664/...

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.... The first of the Federalist Papers was published in 1787. "You are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America....[Are] societies of men...really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice [?]."

MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS Strong earnings growth among minimum wage workers, 1992-2016. Most minimum-wage workers are young, under 30. Strongest among young workers from better-off families, but noticeable even among minimum-wage workers from poor families. www.nber.org/system/files...

WATCH THE GAMES BEGIN... Election monitoring will heighten tensions in the nation’s most closely watched election races on November 4. “This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections,” said a spokesperson for California Governor Newsom. bit.ly/4oGvZUS

EAT CAKE? The House of Representatives will not be back at work before November 1, meaning that 25 states will be unable to provide Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that more than 42 million Americans rely on to put food on the table.

DATA CENTER NEED FOR ELECTRICITY “Data center load growth is the primary reason for recent and expected capacity market conditions, including total forecast load growth, the tight supply and demand balance, and high prices.”

Robert A. Heinlein, 1907-1988, "Beyond This Horizon,: Chapter 15, “Probably a blind alley—”, p. 1 www.amazon.com/Beyond-Horiz...

NOT ALL THAT GLITTERS IS.... "Mar-a-Lago North?" asks Paul Krugman. "Enormous loot from Rome’s conquests created a class of incredibly wealthy oligarchs...too wealthy & powerful to be constrained by republican norms, institutions, & laws." But, where is the yacht? bit.ly/gilkru

LIVING IN THE CRYPT(O) "Cryptocurrency enthusiasts want to replace government-regulated banks with a parallel financial infrastructure for untaxable, untraceable, borderless online-only cash....a libertarian tool is a tool to...challenge...existing laws and their legitimacy." bit.ly/4o7qQFq

YOU LIKE BETTER FRACKING? Fracking injects a high-pressure mix of water, sand & chemicals into a horizontal well to boost recovery. Simultaneous fracturing involves fracturing two wells using the same pumps & crews, cutting time & maximizing equipment use. See RBN Energy: bit.ly/simfr

Schumpeter's Creative Destruction?

"Trump is also cutting subsidies for...solar farms and wind turbines – subsidies that disproportionately went to red states. Iowa gets 63 percent of its electricity from wind!" paulkrugman.substack.com/p/argentina-... substack.com/redirect/ad1... substack.com/redirect/045...

FOR YOU FOLKS OBSESSED WITH TIME MANAGEMENT Time saver -- breathing through your butt. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Theophrastus (371-287 BCE) wrote an essay on “The Braggart:” “Bragging is pretending to have excellences that one does not really possess.” One on “The Bore” has it that “we may define the bore as a man who cannot refrain from talking.” Anyone topping today's headlines? on.wsj.com/4o29BoF

U.S. DEMOCRACY THREAT INDEX -- on Metaculus (www.metaculus.com/index/us-dem...) "This index was created by the nonpartisan group Bright Line Watch (BLW), which monitors the state of American democracy. The index consists of 39 questions based on the democratic principles BLW monitors."

FURTHER ISOLATION OF U.S. AGRICULTURE BY TRUMP Is this just the agricultural sector facing the harsh force of the market? Should ranchers find another line of business? “This is not America first!” Representative Thomas Massie...said." bit.ly/48MN62B

When they tell you they plan on throwing out the constitution, believe them.