So now there's a proposed third party, The America Party.  A recent post on X says:

The America Party isn’t far left and it isn’t far right.   
It is forward and focused on doing what is right. 
It’s the party of builders, innovators, doers, and the silent majority tired of watching two parties pretend to be different while serving the same system. 
The America Party is for the people!

The problem is, most Conservative / Republicans agree with this.  Most Democrats don't.  They are not builders, innovators, or doers.  This will only weaken Republicans frustrated with the far right.  The Democrats will gain a majority forever.  Not happy with this.

Got a Pope from the good ol' USA.  Don't know anything about him other than he's from Chicago and spent a lot of time in Peru.

So I don' hijack the G1000 thread below, I thought I'd start a new one.

These AI tools like Grok are pretty amazing.  I'm about to start the every two year polishing of the 170 and got to thinking... how about let someone else do it.  Got a quote for $4500.  But how much work is that?  I know it's about two weeks of afternoons for me (with frequent beverage and sitting around breaks).  But what else?  Let's ask Grok!  The 170 takes about 50-100 hours to polish.  How much surface area?  About 815 square feet.  And a bunch of other questions that would have taken hours of research (including the rabbit holes) to figure out. 

Where things like Wiki were quick and dirty approximations of answers that still took a long time to dig through, you can get fast answers to pretty much anything, plus the reasoning behind it, plus other things that I didn't think of.  Pretty amazing time we're living in.

Something I'd like to do in retirement is to fly rescue dogs from one place to another.  Gives me a reason to go somewhere, and I like to do good for dogs who would otherwise have a very short unpleasant life.  Do you know of any rescue flight organizations that you'd recommend?  I know of Pilots n Paws, but that's about it.  And nothing about how they are run, and so on.

Seems that 2800 Hezbollah pagers exploded.  Somehow the Iran ambassador to Lebanon had one.  And some people who were previously unknown Hezbollah were exposed.  Pagers from Taiwan were intercepted, their battery compartment was "modified" with a trigger and possibly explosives, and sent on their way.  Beep, then three seconds later, BOOM.  Hezbollah previously discarded their higher-tech communications because they could be hacked.  Wend old school.  Oops.

Why can't we do that?

I am astounded at pictures of the brave men who at their advanced ages attended the ceremonies on the 80th anniversary of D Day.  They stood if they could, sat at attention if they could not, but had dignity, were humble, and quietly accepted the praise they so richly deserved, but would never ask for themselves.

Contrast the FJB stumbling through a speech, pooping in his pants, and having to leave early.  I am so ashamed at what we have become.

Why is there so much hype over this solar eclipse?  I just happened to be in the zone of totality a couple of times and in the partial zone a few more and other than it getting dark and a little chilly it's no big deal.  Yet there's all this "here's what you need to do to prepare for the eclipse!" stuff.  Yes, if I had one I'd fly my Learjet to Nova Scotia to see one, but otherwise, why?

And a happy St. Urho's Day to you all! "Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!