Only my @BoilerFootball (and maybe @MIT) would keep score in binary... Just say'n

Well my friends, it looks like @SpencerPratt's inspired campaign for LA Mayor is going to go down in flames. I probably spent too much time on this but I wanted to see, based on current trends of vote counting, what is the projected outcome. There still is only 78% of the vote counted and given the overwhelming change in daily results compared to election night, I don't see how Pratt pulls it off. It seems to me, a big issue is allowing mail in ballots to be postmarked by close of polls on election day (just like we have here in Oregon). There is just too much opportunity and incentive for someone to put their finger on the scale (Not saying they did, but why create a structure that creates a huge incentive and opportunity?) We will see how it sorts out but from what I am seeing, there is no way possible for Pratt to end up in the runoff.

Which Luce? @Ferrari or @allen_alley and ChatGPT/Grok?

Please join me in supporting State Senator @DavidBrockSmith for the GOP nomination for US Senate. State Senator Smith is one of the hardest working elected politicians I know. He understands policy and politics. He knows how to get things done. Also, all of my interactions with him have been fun. Joyful, hardworking, knowledgeable politician sounds like an oxymoron but when it comes to my experience with DBS it is completely true! facebook.com/share/1CqL4Be27…

This is a glimpse into the future of the Democratic Party and a modern, effective and successfully populist version of Bernie Sanders, AOC and Elizabeth Warren. It is worth your time to watch at least part of this interview. Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate for US Senate from Maine, is the future of the Demicratic Party… unless they screw it up. It would be great to hear the thoughts from both my liberal and conservative friends. youtu.be/-itNjgCJDxU?si=v-W6…

I've been working on a new project to refurbish and upgrade (up-cycle) old Bulls Eye putters. It took a while to work out all of the kinks and this week we introduced them at the @PGA Golf Show. We take brass Bulls Eye putters (some of them as old as I am), polish and calibrate them and then add weights to make them perform with high MOI and neutral face balance. We take the classic putter that dominated professional golf in the 1950s and 1960s and make it competitive with today's "spaceship" design putters while retaining the buttery feel and forgiveness of the original. Follow along the journey on our Instagram AlleyGroupGolf. Also our website AlleyGroupGolf.com

I have to admit I was rooting for @IndianaFootball last night. Hard for me to say that, but everything about their fairytale season was so compelling. Mendoza going full Superman on this play was so fitting. So rather than hate them for their success, I hope @BoilerFootball can learn from it and rise to the same level someday. Congratulations Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!

Several (maybe even many) of you have seen me do a charity auction. Debbie and I started volunteering our services just about 20 years ago to help smaller non-profits raise money. We donate our time so everything raised goes directly to the non-profit. We have helped small local schools and groups as big as OMSI. Over those years we have helped to raise several million dollars for local causes. If you have seen me as an auctioneer (and you think I did a good job), please click on the link, scroll down and vote for me. If you are part of an organization that we worked with, please do a testimonial. My performance in this "contest" makes people feel better about taking a chance on an auctioneer that does it for free. And I think in this case, they get a fairly good value. Thanks! w.paybee.io/bid-masters

What alternative universe are we living in? The one where the @ChicagoBears and the @IUHoosiers might be the two best football teams in their respective leagues. What’s next? The @Lions and @BoilerFootball?

This is an incredibly thoughtful and thought provoking discussion on AI between @JoeRogan and Jensen Huang, CEO of @Nvidia. I highly recommend listening to the entire discussion. Jensen and I co-founded our companies at just about the same time and shared Mark Stevens from Sequoia Capital as our lead investor and board member. Jensen might be THE expert in AI and how it will impact society. He is a technologist but more than that he is a pragmatic, smart CEO who understands applications and the roadmap for the development of AI. Rogan does a great job asking the “average Joe” questions. Totally worth your time. youtu.be/3hptKYix4X8

You may have heard quotes from the Benny Johnson Podcast interview from Sep 19, 2025 with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. Here is a transcript of the entire interview. It was quite useful and interesting for me to see and listen the entire thing. I hope you find it useful as well. The Benny Show Podcast September 19, 2025 Benny Johnson (Johnson): Ladies and gentlemen, here to speak authoritatively on this issue is the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, joining us live now. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for being on our program. This is something that obviously is concerned, a great many number of people, about Jimmy Kimmel's monologue. What does the FCC's stance on this? Certainly is a heightened moment in American history where you do not want to see copycats, you do not want to see further radicalization, but by slandering and maligning and distorting what happened to Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel seems to be inviting it. Chairman Brendan Carr (Carr): First of all, Benny, I don't think you and I haven't had a chance to talk yet since Charlie Kirk's death and I think I just want to join everything you've been saying about Charlie, his life, an amazing man. I think what was so revealing in the last few days is, I think what dawned on so many people is that everyone I think knew that Charlie Kirk had said something kind to them, had lifted them up when they were either a low point in their career or at no point in their career. And when you saw so many people conveying their stories with Charlie, you saw a sort of a connection across hundreds and thousands of people that you knew he meant something to you, but you didn't know that he had somehow found the capacity to be that sort of meaningful inspiration for so many people. I think that's why there's sort of a dawning on people and a reflection in the last couple of days that's been so meaningful to see. You know, when you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. As you've indicated, there are, you know, avenues here for the FCC, so there are some ways in which I need to be a little bit careful, because we could be called ultimately to be a judge on some of these claims that come up, but I don't think this is an isolated incident. I mean, you go back to Representative Swalwell, and he had a tweet out last week where he was saying that, you know, emphasizing that Charlie Kirk's killer was a straight white male from a Republican family that voted for Trump. In some quarters, there's a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people about the nature, as you indicated, one of the most significant newsworthy public interest acts that we've seen in a long time. And what appears to be an action, appears to be an action, by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person. If that's what happened here with his conduct, that is really, really sick. And I've been very clear from the moment that I have become chairman of the FCC, I want to reinvigorate the public interest. And what people don't understand is that the broadcasters, and you've gotten this right, are entirely different than people that use other forms of communication. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and if that comes with it, an obligation to operate in the public interest. And we can get into some ways that we've been trying to reinvigorate the public interest and some changes that we've seen. But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. Johnson: What kind of action would you see? At the very least, I would like to have an on air apology from Jimmy Kimmel to the Kirk family, to all of those who he slandered because he did say that Charlie Kirk, he is effectively saying that our movement did this, our movement killed Charlie, that Charlie was deserving of this effectively. And we've seen that rear its head. This happens quite regularly, actually, on MSNBC and on other networks, where they're trying to victim blame. And what that does, Mr. Chairman, respectfully, is continues the lie and continues the threat level to say effectively that we have no share in this problem at all on the left. This is a clear-cut case. What would you like to see done at ABC? Carr: Well, look, I think what you said there strikes me as a very reasonable minimal step that can be taken. I mean, obviously, look, there's calls for Kim will be fired. I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, you know, the FCC is gonna have remedies that we could look at. And again, you know, we may ultimately be called to be a judge on that. But this also strikes me as sort of conduct that to some extent shows some sort of desperate irrelevance. I mean, we're sort of exiting an era where the three main broadcast legacy broadcast networks could control and dictate the narrative to the American people. And one of the things that President Trump did when he ran for office, he ran directly at that legacy media establishment. He smashed the façade that they get to control what we say, what we think, the narrative around events. And we're seeing a lot of consequences that are flowing from President Trump doing that. I mean, look, NPR has been defunded, PBS has been defunded, Colbert is retiring, Joy Reid is out at MSNBC, Terry Moran has gone from ABC and is now admitting that they are biased. CBS has now made some commitments to us that they're going to return to more fact-based journalism. And so I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel who are, frankly, talentless and are looking for ways to get attention. But, you know, their grip on the narrative is slipping. That doesn't mean that it's still not, you know, important to hold in the public interest standard. That's what we're going to have to do. Johnson: So we did elucidate and enumerate a number of statutes that could be used against ABC. If you would, Mr. Chairman, would you just explain for us what broadcasting in the public interest means? I don't think most people understand actually the depth of how important it is that ABC, NBC, CBS have these gratuitous broadcast privileges granted to them by the American taxpayer. Carr: Yeah, the right way to sort of explain this to people so they understand it is in the media landscape as relevant here, there's two main buckets of actors. One, you've got what we call national programmers. That's what Comcast is, Comcast NBC, that's what Disney is, Disney ABC. They're the ones that effectively create and produce these shows. They then provide those shows to individually licensed TV stations. Those TV stations are in the main owned by independent companies, independent from Comcast and Disney. But Disney and Comcast both own some televisions themselves. So start from the idea that you have national programmers that create the show, including The Kimmel Show, and then they're given to and distributed over licensed TV stations. It's the licensed TV stations that have the public interest standard, including those TV stations that Comcast and Disney own. So FCC regulatory action focuses on those individual stations. And one thing that we're trying to do is to empower those local stations to serve their own communities. And the public interest means you can't be running a narrow, partisan circus and still meeting your public interest obligations. It means you can't be engaging in a pattern of news distortion. We have a rule on the book that interprets a public interest standard that says news distortion is something that is prohibited. Likewise, we have a rule that addresses broadcast hoaxes. And so, again, over the years, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing it. And I don't think it's been to the benefit of anybody. Just look at the credibility of this legacy media. It's absolutely through the floor. They used to be able to say at least they were more trustworthy than Congress, but now they're even less trustworthy than Congress. And so I think as a business matter for them, something has to change. And at the FCC, we need to reinvigorate this. So again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out, because we, we licensed broadcasters, are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion. So I think, again, Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it's time for them to step up and say, this garbage, to the extent that that's what comes down the pipe in the future, isn't something that we think serves the needs of our local communities. But this sort of status quo is obviously not acceptable where we are. Johnson: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for explaining it that way because I don't think that a lot of people quite understand the regulatory nightmare that a company like Disney is under in a situation like this. Because you have one, you have the company Disney, that obviously appeals and markets to children in a constant basis, and they are having one of their companies that they own, that is now maligning a hero of so many of those kids. Charlie Kirk was a Gen Z hero, and so many of those kids that were raised on Disney and Disney products, looked up to Charlie, looked up to Charlie, and to lie about his death and to not be forthright about the forces that killed him culturally, and that threaten other children, obviously, on a day-to-day basis, as we are constantly seeing, is a massive liability. Disney should get very serious about threats to children. Carr: Yeah, I mean, Disney's got a lot of trouble. I mean, look, we've launched, I don't know if we've talked about this publicly yet, but we have launched, have launched, and are continuing to run a investigation into Disney for their DEI practices for potentially violating the FCC's equal employment opportunity rules. We've issued Disney a letter of inquiry on that. We've received some documents from them. Again, we haven't talked, I don't think publicly about that before, but that is a very active investigation that's underway into Disney on that conduct. And again, it's your point. I mean, step back for a second. But if the public interest means anything, if we're going to enforce this thing, I mean, just look at the number of hoaxes that have been run on the American people with the aid of a lot of these broadcasters. You've got, you know, you've got this, you know, the whips at the border store. You've got Covington Catholic. You've got Juicy Smollett. You've got Hunter Biden's laptop. You've got, you know, Joe Biden is sharp as a tack. You've got, you know, fake stories about hospitals being overrun by ivermectin overdoses and therefore people dying of gunshots, mostly peaceful protests. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And again, I think whether it's the FCC through our public interest enforcement actions, whether it's as a business matter, these people need to sort of change course or frankly, the fact that they're increasingly irrelevant because President Trump has run right at them. Most politicians that just said, okay, I'll accept the narrative that mainstream media is pushing and President Trump hasn't done that. And frankly, I think not that there's a great part of the de-platforming of conservatives, but if there is any silver lining that I mean, look at what you built, look at what Charlie built. Republicans, conservatives were forced to build alternate channels of reaching out directly to the American consumer and you are winning the battle of ideas by doing that and the legacy media is struggling and they're lashing out. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for saying that. Obviously, that is what made Charlie so profoundly powerful is his capacity to reach directly to the millions of grassroots supporters and then also to reach physically those supporters at large scale events, many of which we were at together. And those are the kind of things that made him, he was able to do an end round, the gatekeepers that typically would keep someone like Charlie from ever having an audience. It actually is a remarkable moment. It's what made him frankly so dangerous to so many that wanted to see his life cut short. To honor his memory, we thank you for ensuring that the FCC is going to be enforcing these rules. A final question to you, do you believe that what Jimmy Kimmel said rises to the level of news distortion? Carr: Look, again, the FCC could be called upon to be an ultimate judge in that, but at this point, I think it's clear, it appears to be clear, that you could make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core, fundamental fact, a very important matter. At the end of the day, if we do get called upon to cast a vote on this, Disney will have a chance to put in their arguments and explain it, but this is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. Johnson: Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Please follow Chairman Brendan Carr here on X, the Federal Communications Commission Chairman.

When I witnessed the assassination of Charlie Kirk I had much the same reaction I had on September 11, 2001. It felt like a very dark cloud was settling over our country and the world. On 911, I was in Tokyo. Watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center live just like in this picture. Thought this could be the beginning of the end. Something told me to reach in my pocket. I did and found a quarter. I looked for the words, wondered if they still were there... they were... In God We Trust. We all carry those words around with us every day. It gave me comfort in 2001, 5,000 miles from my family and that quarter is in my pocket today as we face new challenges. May God bless you and your family Charlie Kirk. He is with you and all of us.

Record highs, by state, by year. Average High Year - 1948 Median High Year - 1936 Thought I would just post this and let you all discuss, comment and draw conclusions. @OregonHouseGOP @OregonJournProj @CascadePolicy