To AI Or Not To AI

 

Thanks to Doña Ana County’s Project Jupiter, New Mexico, like the rest of the country, is caught up in the data center controversy. Are they going to use up all our water in operating this new data center campus? Will they cause our electricity rates to rise? Will we have to live next to noisy factories?

Much of the information we are getting on this artificial intelligence technology storage and processing media, most of it spun out from American adversaries like Communist China and Leftist billionaires, is anti-AI propaganda. Many of the proposed data center entrants will use internal water recycling and provide their own electricity from natural gas, solar, and even small fission plants.

Nevertheless, I think they’re overbuilding all this. One of these days these boxes will stand empty like unneeded warehouses.

 Why? 

Because there will be technological innovations along the way which will make design of these plants smaller and use even less electricity. All ready on science websites I’m seeing research into folding chip substrates which will create less heat.

When the first UNIVAC computers came out in the 1950s, they were as big as houses. And talk about generating heat. Their rows of glass vacuum tubes needed a whole lot of cooling to allow human beings to work in the same building. Today you can get just about the same computing power in a small laptop. And data centers and AI will see the same technological improvements. Not to mention that once reliable quantum computers are built, you’ll see that same information processing and storage in a fraction of the are currently needed. One reason to save helium and stop wasting it on birthday balloons.

Have some faith in human ingenuity and we will see further improvements in national security, computing, and in our lives.

            by Clyde James Aragón

 

Pay Off The National Debt With Tariff Money

Today I read that President Donald Trump has placed a 25% to 100% tariff on imported drones. The rationale being that they can be used both for commercial and military uses, the military uses being the problematic one if used within our country by foreign powers or those with evil intent.

The President has placed tariffs on many things since he was elected to office from imported aluminum to trucks and buses to pharmaceuticals and timber. For those of us purchasing those products, it's pretty much a tax although it may hopefully induce corporations to start manufacturing these products in this country.

However, if used right, tariff monies could go toward fixing a most vexing problem of ours, namely the National Debt.

Currently, and thanks to our 'representatives in Congress, our federal government is carrying over $39 trillion in debt and that number is growing. It takes tax money away from needed projects and leaves inflation in its wake.

May I propose a use for the billions collected from tariffs: let's use that money to start paying down our debt. It seems about the least painful way to deal with that financial menace that robs us of the value of our money. Indeed, inflation created by printing money and 'promising' to pay it back some day really effects retirees on fixed income. We made this mess and we should pay it ourselves instead of sloughing it off on future generations.

Money collected by tariffs and a little fiscal restraint in Congress could go a long way to solving our debt problem. Otherwise we are looking at the fate of 1920s Germany under the Weimar Republic when you needed a wheelbarrow to move your money around.

         by © Clyde James Aragon  - All Rights Reserved 

Dishonest Gabe

I must say that House Representative Gabe Vasquez’s January 27 column in the Albuquerque Journal denouncing ICE was a bucket full of lies.

First of all, he sympathetically portrays Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed in a Minnesota riot, as a mother of three who had just dropped off her child at school. Maybe she had come from school, but she and her wife were out harassing federal ICE agents at the time of her death. I saw the videos. She would stop in front of ICE agents, curse and taunt them, and drive off in her SUV. She did that repeatedly until she did clip an ICE agent who she sent to the hospital and who responded to her by shooting her in self-defense. Mr. Vasquez, you know full well that is what happened.

Second, Mr. Vasquez goes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, claiming that her agency has gone rogue and that she is incompetent. No, Mr. Vasquez, Kristi Noem is doing her job which is enforcing Constitutional immigration laws passed by both political parties over the years. If there’s any failure of leadership and incompetence, it lies in you, Mr. Vasquez. It is you who watched mute as Joe Biden and his administration opened up the borders to whoever came by and whose actions created the mess ICE is having to deal with today. If anyone’s head is rotting it’s yours, Mr. Vasquez.

Third, Mr. Vasquez proudly points to his voting to spend billions of dollars for border technology. For what? To purchase more expensive unopened boxes? President Trump has closed the border and billions were not needed to do that.

Finally, you end with a statement about keeping Americans safe. How safe were we during the Biden years as you quietly ignored the Americans who were raped and killed by the illegal aliens you passively watched enter our country? You didn't even bother to clap or stand as the memory of murdered Georgia student Laken Riley was honored at the 2025 State of the Union preferring, instead, to protect your ping pong paddle. And you say you care about our safety?

They say Truth dies in Darkness but in your case, Mr. Vasquez, it dies right out in the open.

            © Clyde James Aragon. All rights reserved

 

Minnesota vs. Iran's Riots

There seems to be a parallel between the efforts of the Islamic Party in Iran to hang on to power and the never-ending ICE riots going on in Minneapolis as mob thuggery there tries to stop ICE officers from enforcing the immigration laws of the United States. The Ayatollahs have no problem killing their people and the Democrats have no problem hurting ICE officers, burning down buildings, or watching as their members get killed.

Because what we’re seeing are entrenched dictatorships fighting to stay in power.

Strangely enough, enforcing the immigration laws of the United States represents an existential threat to Democrat rule in Minnesota. Not only might their voting base be removed and they lose their grip on that state but investigations into how their various programs defrauded taxpayers could cause many of them to go to prison. In trying to save their own skin, Democrat politicians have no problem watching their minions killed defending the honor of the Democrat Party.

            © Clyde James Aragon. All rights reserved

A Reply To A Newspaper Begging For Money

Albuquerque Journal Executive Editor Jay Newton-Small's letter to her self on soliciting money from its readers to hire investigative reporters struck me as bizarre. First of all, asking for money from its readers should have come from Publisher William P. Lang. He shows no leadership and a great deal of cowardice when he appoints underlings to do his job.

Nevertheless, Ms. Newton-Small's plea begins with a foreboding entry that today's newspapers are under attack. To which I ask, by whom? You've attacked yourself, quite frankly, by choosing to push newspapers into the bias and discontent of progressive politics. You chased off Republican and conservative readers who got fed up reading the same old drivel you get on the nightly TV news for free.

Years ago when I took Journalism at the university, I was taught that we should try to get both sides of a story. Nowadays I rarely see both sides examined especially when it comes to local and state government machinations where most stories are little more than reworked government press releases.

And you have not made yourself welcome with the 11-year Hate Trump War you've waged against him. Back in 2018 when Trump was first elected, newspapers, including the Journal, banded together one Sunday to inform us that he was going to destroy Democracy. Yet here we are in 2025. We still have Democracy, we still have Freedom of Speech, and we still have Freedom of the Press. And I'd say we have more freedom these days thanks to DOGE. Paring our bloated federal government would certainly have been appreciated by Thomas Jefferson who believed smaller government was the best of all.

Returning, though, to the Albuquerque Journal's need for more money, it must be quite acute as you don't even have the funds to put out a pet calendar this year. And it seems laughable to be asked for donations when we're told they will be matched. If you have the money to match donations, why aren't you using those funds to hire reporters to begin with?

Sorry Journal, if you want my money, put out an unbiased product that educates and informs instead of promotes blind propaganda. I think we've had enough of one-sided newspapers claiming to look after our interests.

            © Clyde James Aragon. All rights reserved

10 Signs Your Country Is A Banana Republic

        10 Signs Your Country Is A Banana Republic

  1) People defecating on the sidewalk

  2) Police afraid to aid unarmed citizens

  3) Homeless and illegal aliens with more rights than citizens

  4) Colleges graduating people who can't do simple math in their head

  5) Politicians laugh in your face

  6) Calling government spending 'investment' 

  7) Turning their back on the unborn

  8) Growing poverty is ignored

  9) Corruption is found acceptable and shrugged off

10) No one can afford bananas

        by © Clyde James Aragon  - All Rights Reserved

The Great Government Shutdown of 2025

During this Great Government Shutdown we see some government workers sent home to await their eventual paychecks while others are considered essential personnel and are still hard at work.

Seems mighty unfair that at the end of the shutdown, the non-essential will get full back pay while those who worked will get the same and little acknowledgement for their loyalty and effort.

If I might make a suggestion to the powers that be, after the shutdown ends, those who were considered essential personnel and actually worked during the shutdown should get a 15 percent bonus while those who stayed at home should get a 15 percent reduction. Also, those who were working and called in sick or took time out should also have those particular pay hours reduced by 15 percent so as to give them a reason to not abuse sick leave or vacation time at a moment when they are really needed.

Let’s get a little fairness here for the working class.

            by © Clyde James Aragon  - All Rights Reserved