Jeffrey Neil Jackson

Iran’s Inevitable Incursion

On November 4, 1979, “students”   took over the U.S. embassy in Iran and held the occupants of the embassy for 444 days. In case you were not aware, the taking of an embassy is, by international law, an act of war. Officials of the Iranian government allowed the occupation, taking, as far as anyone can tell, no efforts to relieve the situation.  What nation would allow “students” to overtake an embassy (under international law, an act of war) for 444 days?

Operation Eagle Claw, an effort to rescue the hostages in April of 1980 failed due to numerous failures too intricate to describe here. Iran freed our embassy personnel on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. While hindsight is easy, there is still considerable speculation that if Jimmy Carter had been able to free the hostages, he might have won the presidential election for another term.

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The Phenomenal Practicing Professionals

For some time I have wondered why some of the very talented people I grew up with never went anywhere. I saw a file on the internet that addressed the problem. Some children who are “gifted” find mastering certain skills quite easy, while their classmates struggle and work very hard to master the material. But as they progress in the field, there finally (usually in college) comes a time when they must work to move along in the area. Then, when faced with having to work in the area, for the first time, they simply stop and drop out. In the book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argued that ten-thousand hours of practice is required to become truly world-class. (The original research was done by K. Anders Ericsson, just to give credit for all of his hours of work.)

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The Ignorance of Influencers

The British newspaper The Guardian recently posted an article about a podcast named “The Birth Keepers” which is part of The Free Birth Society, an organization that “encourages women to give birth without medical support – no midwives, no doctors, no ultrasounds – just faith and ‘instinct.’” According to The Guardian, the FBS is linked to “at least 18 cases where the group played a significant role in the mother or birth attendant’s decision-making, leading to potentially avoidable tragedies.”

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Purloining Public Progress

In December of 2025, the federal government of the United States was in debt to the tune of thirty-eight trillion, four-hundred seventy nine billion, seven hundred and sixty three million, eight-hundred thousand, three-hundred ninety-three dollars. That’s a lot of money that we owe, and sooner or later someone is going to have to pay it.

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North Korea, Crime and Cryptocurrencies

On August 8, 2008, Bitcoin (a cryptocurrency) emerged. Cryptocurrencies are a form of money that can be used in online exchanges. Some would say it was inevitable, in that more and more business is done online, and there needed to be some kind of currency for online transactions other than the currencies of the various nations that issued currencies. A little history is in order. The Eurocurrency was created to have a common currency for nineteen countries of Europe, so that they would have one currency no matter what country you were in. Banking would be easier, and transactions would be easier, without having to switch from one currency to another while traveling in Europe, or exchanges from one nation to another. England decided not to join the European Union, so England still used the pound for transactions. Nineteen countries took the Euro as their currency. Banking and transactions became much easier.

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An Ephemeral Entertaining Existence

I was searching an online video sharing website when I came upon a video by a young woman who was criticizing all of the current technology and what it has devolved into. She lamented how society has declined and we now live in an instant gratification society and economy, where everything, including relationships, has become a “throwaway culture.” The term “hedonic adaptation” came about, and, for me it was new, and perhaps you as well. According to an internet search: “Hedonic adaptation is the psychological process of returning to a stable level of happiness after positive or negative events.”

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An Abysmal Artificial Aftermath  

From the front page of The Wall Street Journal of August 14, 2025, from an article “Latest in Silicon Valley: Embryo IQ Screening: “Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, a mathematician, spent seven years researching how to keep an advanced form of artificial intelligence from destroying humanity before he concluded that stopping it wasn’t possible-at least anytime soon.”

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution is going to make the Industrial Revolution look like a teen-age run lemonade stand next to a freeway.

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Colbert’s Self-Centered Culmination

Decades ago, there were late-night comedians who made jokes at the expense of prominent politicians and policy-makers. But the late-night shows were balanced- they criticized prominent politicians equally, and they showed no favoritism.

Then, as the “golden-age” hosts retired, came the new wave. Convinced by their college professors that they were right, the new breeds of late-night hosts were thoroughly convinced that their liberal ideology was correct, and no challenges would be accepted. While accusing the right-wing traditionalists of being fascists, it was more like the late-night hosts were fascists, because fascists do not allow any criticism, the very behavior that they so roundly criticized the conservatives of doing.

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The Conurbation of Cerebral Citizens

A White House study in 2021 found that 400 billionaire families paid an average of 8.2 percent of their income in taxes, while the average American paid 13 percent of their wages in taxes. Keep that in mind as you read the following.

Dryden Brown, a man of  twenty-nine, has a new plan that will “save Western civilization” as we know it. He is on a mission to create a “network state” called Praxis, a city that “has yet to exist.” Praxis will be a “special economic zone” that will “accelerate technological progress” in the areas such AI (Artificial Intelligence for those unfamiliar with it) biotech and energy. Praxis has raised about half a billion dollars from the likes of Sam Altman, Shervin Pishevar, as well as (those notorious billionaire brothers) Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The city already has an online community of 89,000 prospective citizens. You didn’t get invited? Well, you’re not cerebral enough, and don’t have the social connections necessary in this “neo-Gilded Age.”

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Obligations, Opportunities and a Cabinet Oligarchy

Former President Biden’s cognitive abilities were noticeably in decline by the end of 2023. There are five people of which you probably haven’t heard. At least I didn’t because I don’t take particular interest in the aides of the president. However, as quoted in an interview with Joe Scarborough, the authors of a recent book about the Biden administration, Original Sin quoted the following people:

“The people in charge were [top Biden advisers] Mike Donilon, Steve Riccheti, Bruce Reed, Anthony Bernal, the first lady’s chief of staff, the first lady, and Annie Tomasini,” Thompson responded. “Those are the people that saw him the most and that had the most control over what he was doing and his day-to-day.” Five people who attend meetings to which you will not likely be invited. Five people who, on a regular basis, occupy rooms that you will likely never see. Five people who, according to mounting evidence, ran the executive branch of our government, as our president’s mental abilities declined. I voted in the election of 2020, and I didn’t see any of those names on the ballot. I don’t think I missed them.

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Mischance and Malevolent Missions

We have been sending earth designed machines into space beginning in 1957. Twenty years later, Voyager was launched and sent past the planets in our solar system, and then into deep space. Voyager’s mission is to seek life in deep space. We earthlings have also sent radio waves into space to see if there is any intelligent life out there. We have been waiting for a response from extraterrestrials with baited breath.

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Predicting a Presidential Payback

Never allow your adversary to underestimate what you would do in response to a challenge. Never tell him in advance what you would not do.”- Richard M. Nixon

Now, in 2025, Donald Trump has returned to the presidency, something that has not been done since 1893. The Democrats attempted several times to “weaponize” the law, to put Donald Trump behind bars where he could not be a threat to them. Obviously, their plan didn’t work. Weaponizing the law isn’t new. People who were not in favor of our government’s leaders have been prosecuted for some time, with black citizens who were prosecuted in the South just one of the more morally reprehensible examples of weaponizing.

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The Trouble with Trillions of Talent

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Newly reelected President Trump (2025) wants to appoint Elon Musk and another billionaire, whose name I keep thinking is Rathersmarmy. I keep visualizing Rathersmarmy with a smile about eight shades brighter than any normal set of choppers.  These two billionaires will be heading (if this department is approved) DOGE, (Department of Government Efficiency) a proposed government agency that will examine other government agencies and eliminate government waste. It is true that government agencies often have overlapping jurisdictions, and those would be a prime target for elimination. My question is:  Do Musk and Rathersmarmy really understand the workings of the government of the United States? How many Political Science classes have they taken, that would explain just how the government of the United States functions?

For example, the federal Department of Education handed out $234.6 billion dollars during the 2021-2022 academic year.  According to USA Today, unpaid student loans equal $1.74 trillion with 92% being federal student loan debt. President Biden tried several times to get the votes of those citizens by forgiving most of that debt, but failed in spite of several attempts to increase the federal deficit by trillions when it was all over. Not to throw out too many numbers here, but college enrollment has declined since 2010, with public colleges declining by 15.1%.  Perhaps the federal Department of Education could use some attention.

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Progressive Political Peregrination

America has always been a land of opportunity; especially for people of other nations who, through no fault of their own, had no other opportunities. As Bill Murray described in the movie “Stripes” about Americans: “We’re still a nation of loyal, sometimes lovable mutts whose forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world.” 

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Gen Z’s Zestiness and the Busting Baby Boomers

A recent posting on MSN,  by Societe US, titled “20 Social Issues Gen Z are Determined to Cancel” listed many things that Gen Z want to cancel in American society. Gen Zs were born in the late 1990s and into 2010s. Every generation has its values. Most of the time, new generations tend to shun at least some of the values and mores of the generation before them. Culture wars aren’t violent, but can be disturbing to the elders who do not understand or accept the new philosophical positions of the next generation. That is, of course, assuming that the philosophical position actually has logical, empirical information that supports their position. Just saying you disagree is not a defendable philosophical position. And rejecting the values of the present society because you are lazy or you find those values inconvenient is not a reason to reject them as well.

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Weaponizing, Wrathfulness and Retribution

Warning: I am not endorsing Donald Trump for any political position.

Some Democrats have weaponized the law, with the trial of former president Donald Trump. Federal officials declined from prosecuting Trump, mainly because of the statute of limitations, which had run out. The New York district attorney decided that if the crimes were raised to felonies, the violations of law were still within the range of prosecution under New York law. 

While I’m not a lawyer, it seems that most prosecutions need to have a victim. Trump’s prosecution didn’t seem to have any. One of the “witnesses” former porn star Stormy Daniels, mostly testified that she was paid to have “relations” with Trump, and that she was paid to keep quiet about it.

Trump had bodyguards at the time, and none of them were available to verify her testimony. It seems to me that one of those bodyguards could have been subpoenaed by the prosecution to verify this tryst. There was no point in Trump calling the bodyguard in question, because, logically, it is difficult, if not impossible, to verify something that didn’t happen. You can’t verify a negative very easily, if at all. Perhaps Trump’s lack of presenting the testimony of one of his bodyguards proves his guilt, but then, again, verifying something didn’t happen is quite difficult. You can only prove what happened, not what didn’t happen. (Proving something didn’t happen is a logical fallacy, by the way.)

Interestingly enough, Stormy Daniels was interviewed by Bill Mahr in 2018, and her description of that encounter in that interview resembled nothing like what she testified at the trial.

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Protests of Puerile Pedantry 

In an April 22, 2024 article in The Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley described the mentality of college students. If you give “safe spaces’ to college students, soon they will insist that entire groups have their own spaces, and then professors as well as speakers from outside the college be silenced because the students disapprove of what the professor or visitor is saying. The new intellectual elite are incapable of hearing anything that disagrees with their unquestionably correct ideology.  This permissive attitude toward students soon  leads to high grades without work,  and eventually college graduates who insist that they will only work thirty hours a week; for full-time pay, of course. As my law professor described, this is the “slippery slope” situation, where you indulge one behavior and many more follow, in tyrannical abuse of your original intent.

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Philanthropists Plotting Public Plunder

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In 1916, part of the federal tax code included an “oil depletion allowance” which “in American (US) tax law is an allowance claimable by anyone with an economic interest in a mineral deposit or standing timber. The principle is that the asset is a capital investment that is a wasting asset, and therefore depreciation can reasonably be offset (effectively as a capital loss) against income.” This is, in simpler terms, the ability to write off profits (in other words, they are not considered taxable income) because the asset that is generating you money (also called revenue) but is, as an asset, growing smaller and smaller.

Since your oil well will eventually run dry, you can deduct a certain amount of income that it generates, because your oil well won’t last forever.  Big Oil takes and is allowed to keep 23% of their profits, as they are not taxable under the Depletion Allowance Tax law. Wouldn’t you love to keep the top 23% of your income as non-taxable? According to Mother Jones magazine, Big Oil and the petrochemical industry have shielded $470 billion from being taxed since 2014 using this tax deduction. Nice work if you can get it.

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Effective Altruism: A Pioneering Philosophical Position or Greed, Gratification and Garbles

Now that Sam Bankman-Fried can cause no further damage for at least the next two decades, or, if you wish, one score plus five, it might be interesting to evaluate his philosophical position. Bankman-Fried had adopted the philosophy of Effective altruism, to be referred to as EA as we carry on. Please do not feel bad if you have never heard of Effective altruism, as it seems to be a mantra of the nouveau riche, and if you were to be a member of the nouveau riche, your advisors would have probably already told you of it. Effective altruism has been embraced by the “early adopters” such as Bankman-Fried and other high-tech billionaires who philosophically love new ideas, especially when said ideas make them wealthy, although I would wager they haven’t read Descartes or Nietzsche. After all, if you are among the nouveau riche, a new philosophical position is probably warranted, as the older philosophical positions no longer fit in our Digital Age.

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The Corruption of College Compensation – Student Debt Forgiveness

Presidents have ignored rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States for quite some time. In order that you understand the context of events, the following paragraphs offer some perspective. The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1832, decided the case Worcester v. Georgia (31 U.S. 515).  The question before the court was: Does the state of Georgia have the authority to regulate the intercourse between citizens of its state and members of the Cherokee Nation?

The answer was: No.

“In an opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Court held that the Georgia act, under which Worcester was prosecuted, violated the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. Noting that the “treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union,” Chief Justice Marshall argued, “The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.” The Georgia act thus interfered with the federal government’s authority and was unconstitutional.

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