Happy Father's Day Summer Solstice

Celebrate the Masculine, the Expansiveness this Midsummer!

Helios, heel

We need relics

The 1,200-year-old Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is believed to have died after it didn’t sprout leaves this spring, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said Thursday.

I'm sick, St. Oak!

“The truth is, it’s very hard right now to talk to AI companies, whether it’s Altman and OpenAI, or anybody else, because they have a gun at our heads.”

WHY?  

from this article and I like this Bernie Sanders proposal.  Tax payers should always benefit and have a say in things we funded.  AI wouldn't be doing what it's doing if it wasn't for taxpayer money.  I wish Bernie explained it like this.

Langston Hughes

I, too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,—

I, too, am America.

First sightings: Bat edition

 I'm sure I could've seen them earlier if I had timed it right??

Elon uses taxpayers, Wall Street should have faith in the Govt/Us

Article from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex

Innards of article that I'm posting as a PSA:

The federal government awarded SpaceX more than $500 million worth of grants in its early years. And that $500 million is just a fraction of what Tesla received from government grants, loans, contracts and regulatory policies.

That’s not to say SpaceX’s success and Tesla’s roughly $1.5 trillion valuation are entirely due to federal spending, but both companies teetered as startups before receiving taxpayer subsidies.

SpaceX’s first major windfall was a $278 million grant from NASA in 2006 to develop the Falcon rocket system and Dragon space capsule. The Space Shuttle program was ending, and the US needed a new way to get astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

It was the first of more than $500 million in grants SpaceX would receive, according to data from PitchBook, which tracks the valuation of private companies.

“That was about half of their capital that they raised to that point,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a public interest group advocating space flight, said ahead of the SpaceX IPO. “This was a substantial commitment that NASA provided.”

And while NASA has enjoyed the benefits of SpaceX’s success, with dozens of humans ferried to the space station aboard the company’s rockets, it didn’t benefit like those private investors.

Wall Street’s faith in Musk is the main reason his wealth has reached previously unimaginable heights — at least for the moment, as long as his companies’ share prices remain near where they are. But that faith comes because at the start of his businesses, when he needed financial assistance the most, it was the US government — not Wall Street — that provided the needed help.

WHERE'S OUR CUT?

image from here

Oogum Boogum castin your spell on me!

 

Trace your meridians

 

Tshirtss! Tshirts, here!

 

First hearings: Cicada edition

 Excitement is in the air!!!!!

Toots!

Do-do-dooo!
Announcing, the one and only!
Tap-dancing maniac
Musical brainiac
Whomping hilariac
Fun-loving friend
Eleven years back, you came to us,
Always at my side
Now it's time to grow and grow and grow!
Cheers for tomorrow!
Cheers for today!

mija

Groovy, girl

Not on the backs of the wealthy, but the backs of We

Much of the progress this country has made over the past 75 years was achieved with the help of government money for research. As the federally funded National Science Foundation touts on its website, “Next time you talk on a cell phone, hear a weather report, search the web, or get an MRI, remember the U.S. National Science Foundation helped make that all possible, and more.” To name just a few examples of what the “more” includes: the development of artificial intelligence, along with the semiconductors and supercomputers that run AI technologies, research into AI’s effect on the U.S. workforce and research on the social and ethical guardrails needed to rein in AI. 

Historically, federal agencies have supported research not in the spirit of an investor looking to make a quick profit, but rather in the spirit of a benefactor looking to do real good in the world. That beneficence, in turn, is necessary for progress because good science is slow and deliberate, and its payoff is never guaranteed. Getting to headline-worthy developments takes far more time than private investors are typically willing to wait for a return on their capital, and far more money than private investors are typically willing to risk. And if the outcome was certain, there would be no need to do the research at all.

from here

And then the billionaires who were propped up by us, don't pay us back
AND act like they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps
They just take, take, take. 
TAX them, Regulate them
They are getting everything and we are getting nothing
Ridem cowpoke, yee-yaw!