Good intentions. They’re great for road paving, but how much do they count for in things that really matter, like helping the less fortunate?

We have things like charity in this country, which exists to help people. But we also have businesses in this country — like Walmart — that exist to make a profit off of people — including poor people.

But which is helping people more?

Now, Americans are pretty generous. We gave $592 billion to charity last year. That’s on top of all those stupid taxes taken from us.

But what was the benefit from that? And it’s not like every charity even checks if things work. For every dollar that bought a can of food for the hungry, there’s a dollar that bought a gala, a brochure, a consultant, and a warm, fuzzy feeling. That’s because people give money based on intentions, not results. Charity is not like a business where if you fail at your goal, you go out of business. In fact, if you really fail to help and things get even worse, you can use how bad things are to raise even more money.

Still, let’s look at what are some of the best charities in the U.S. for helping the poor. Take Feeding America, the biggest charity in the country by revenue. And it’s good at its job: a network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters that handed out 5.7 billion meals last year to some 46 million people. Because it runs on donated and rescued food instead of buying it retail, it squeezes every dollar donated to it — by its own math, a buck becomes at least ten meals.

That’s the ceiling. Feeding the American poor done about as well as it’s ever been done — and it runs on about $5 billion a year, most of that not even cash but the value of donated food.

Now, let’s look at Walmart. It’s the largest private employer in the country. It puts 2.1 million people to work. The average hourly associate makes north of eighteen dollars an hour. Also, about three out of four of its salaried store managers — people now clearing six figures — started out hourly, pushing carts and stocking shelves. It’s not just a job, but for a lot of people it’s a ladder with the bottom rung low enough for anyone to reach it.

Then there’s the other thing Walmart does, the thing it’s actually famous for: Figuring out how to make everything super cheap.

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Our country is headed toward ruin.

I know a lot of people have been saying this for a long time, but that’s because it’s been true for a really long time. If I had to pinpoint, I’d say the decline started with the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913.

So, since the decline has been going on for so long, think of how close we have to be to the bottom now. That means we need to do something radical to turn things around. And I know just what to do. And it’s simple.

Deport the whiners.

Whining has always been the biggest problem in our country, because we were specifically made to be a country for awesome people who achieve things, so whiners do nothing but drag us down. It was probably a bunch of whining about the wealthy that led to the 16th Amendment and income tax (and look at how we’ve all suffered from that).

Whining is time not spent achieving. Not only that, it irritates and slows down everyone else actually trying to use the opportunities of our great country. And finally, whining has led to the expansion of the government into a big bloated mess, since the usual response to whining is regulations and handouts.

And right now there is so much whining. We are richer and have more tech and opportunities than anyone in human history, and yet people whine more than anyone in human history. While many of us are trying to work and make things and innovate, we have people whining about billionaires or the Jews or data centers. So many of us are looking to the future, while the whiners try to drag us back.

So we need to get rid of the whiners. If someone is found to be a whiner, he or she needs to have citizenship revoked and be deported. I’ve argued before that we need to use Canada as our Siberia, but we can send them anywhere as long as it’s far away. I hear we’re working on a moon base — the moon would be a great place for whiners where they can’t bother us.

Now, some people may bring up a possible problem with this plan: Isn’t whining a First Amendment right protected by the Constitution? And you’re right that a still not conservative enough Supreme Court could see things this way.

But this is nonsense. Whining isn’t regular speech — it’s like dangerous assault speech. It doesn’t convey information — it simply irritates people who are actually trying to get things done in this country. The purpose of whining is to annoy people until they give in to the whiner’s demands, so it’s really an attack.

Still, I guess we’ll just have to pass a new Amendment clarifying that whining is not speech. Once we have that, we can start deporting people. I know ICE is busy with getting illegal aliens, but getting them out of the country simply isn’t as important as getting rid of whiners (unless they’re whiny illegal aliens, which I guess a lot are). We start rounding up anyone whining instead of doing, drop them on the other side of the border, and make big walls so they can’t come back in.

And that’s it. We do that — we successfully get rid of the whiners — and we will finally be that shining city on a hill. And probably a bunch of people outside the country will whine, “That city is too shiny — it’s hurting my eyes,” but we won’t hear them because the wall around our country is also soundproof.

What single policy would you choose to fix everything? You can’t choose “deport all the whiners” because I just did that one.

Elon Musk is likely to be the world’s first trillionaire — probably later this year. And so many people are thinking, “Oh, the things I would do with a trillion dollars,” and it’s quite obvious those people aren’t rich, because it’s absurd to think that being a trillionaire means you have a trillion dollars.

What has done the most damage to people’s understanding of capitalism? Is the work of Marx? The lectures of Thomas Piketty? Bernie Sanders rallies?

No, I’d say the greatest damage was done by the cartoon DuckTales. It gave us the idea that when someone is very wealthy, he puts all his money in a giant money bin and swims in it.

Of course, any actual capitalist would be appalled at the idea of that much money just sitting in a building doing nothing. The whole point of capitalism is that money is never supposed to just sit there. If you’re not actively spending money on a ham sandwich or something, in the least it should be in a bank account where the bank can give it to other people to invest while you’re not using it. Even better, it can be invested in new businesses through stocks. Or — and this is the way many become billionaires — your wealth is in your own brilliant innovative business that is continuing to grow.

And this, of course, is how Elon Musk is a billionaire: He’s created multiple businesses — Tesla, SpaceX — that he owns. When SpaceX goes public, he’s expected to pass the mark of one trillion in wealth. And people hear this and think, “Here’s all the things he could do with that money.” Except that there isn’t any money.

Let’s understand what Musk’s wealth means: He owns a large part of the companies he made. Those companies then become valued so highly based on stock trading. And what exactly does that mean?

I once heard (maybe it was from Michael Munger on EconTalk) that stocks are like a way for profits to time-travel. Money is being raised for businesses now through the purchase of shares based on what profits they think a company will have in the future. When you hear of Elon Musk’s wealth, this is what he has: shares of his own company being valued based on what people think the profits will be far in the future.

So when people talk about spending that money, that money is not here. It’s far in the future. So when you talk of a wealth tax based on his shares in a company, you’re taxing money that doesn’t even exist yet — it’s money far in the future. The value of his companies is still pure speculation, and you’re making suggestions on spending and taxing speculation.

So even if Elon Musk was valued at a trillionaire, he in no way could ever have an actual trillion dollars to spend. To try and get that, he would have to sell the shares in his own businesses, and if he did that, the value of those shares would immediately plunge! A big reason they are worth so much and people speculate on such high profits for Tesla and SpaceX is that Elon Musk is very invested in the success of those companies. If he started selling his shares and was no longer invested as highly in those companies, they would be worth much much less. He would only end up with a small fraction of that trillion dollars — because again, that money only exists in the hearts and minds of the investors. If it exists at all, it’s profits that will be earned a decade from now.

Which is why it’s so stupid when people are like, “Think of all you could buy with Elon’s wealth,” because it does not actually exist. And that’s also why wealth tax is so stupid and insidious — you’re taxing speculation that changes daily, not anything real.

So that’s why Elon Musk is a billionaire and probably will soon be a trillionaire — because he’s made businesses that people believe will make huge profits in the future. But it’s not because he has money. A bunch of coins sitting in a vault is not real wealth — wealth is the future. And Elon Musk is seen as the wealthiest man in the world because he’s believed to have the best grip on that future.

The scientifically minded often have a lot of problems with the description of creation in Genesis — the order, the timeline, the dividing of animals into whether they flew, walked, or swam instead of orders or genuses — but I’d say it was never meant as a science textbook. Yet, there are some strong truths in it that led to science. Genesis describes not a world of spirits, but of things God created. The sun and the moon aren’t gods, they’re just more objects God added to this universe. They aren’t described more than as “lights,” but it’s clear you shouldn’t bow down to them.

And it’s having this faith God made a physical, ordered universe that allows science. There is no blasphemy in probing the world — God made it and gave it to us. And we know God is not capricious, so the rules we derive from His creations should be solid and meaningful.

Of course, sometimes the science conflicted with what at the time was religious belief, as when scientific discoveries showed the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. This was certainly trouble for a time, but eventually it was decided there was nothing in the Bible that really said one way or another on who revolved around whom (it was just assumed the earth was the center of importance, but nothing God said was explicit about revolutions). Now it’s no longer considered a religious issue.

But a big split from science — one that is still ongoing — is about evolution. It’s easy to see how this was a big deal. For most of human history, atheism was actually really hard. There were so many strange unexplained things one could see from the lightning to the stars at night. Slowly, we peeled back most of those mysteries, but the hardest one to come up with a naturalistic explanation for had to be life itself. It was unthinkable for there to be some unguided process that could come up with all the many varied lifeforms we have on the planet.

And then someone theorized one. Now, this was a big boon for atheists — even more so than finding out the Earth is not the center of the universe. Now one of the biggest mysteries has a scientific solution, and many of them went, “See? You don’t need God. Animals just evolve from each other instead of being created.”

Now, there are two ways for a Christian to attack this statement — one good and one bad. And unfortunately, many settled on the bad method: Which is to implicitly accept the premise of it (“evolution disproves God”) and then attack the science.

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So a bunch of people are always whining about billionaires.

“Billionaires shouldn’t exist!” these people shout, but I wonder why in the world people even care about billionaires. No billionaire has ever done anything to me. I don’t even know any. If it weren’t for all the whining about them, I wouldn’t even know they were around.

But you know who does cause problems that directly affect me? It’s the billionaire’s dark opposite: the poor person.

Poor people suck. They commit crime. They ruin neighborhoods. They smell weird. And not only all that, they cost us a ton of money. 60% of the federal budget now goes to entitlements, and that’s mainly to pay for poor people1 — whom I don’t even like!

So, poor people are terrible and the government is constantly taking money out of my pocket to keep these terrible people around? What?! So why is anyone worrying about billionaires — people who pay a lot of those taxes but also give us cool things like being able to order anything to my door overnight and magic space rockets?

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There’s one thing tearing the right apart: standards.

See, we have a crisis. The Democrats and the left will completely destroy this country and it will be over if they ever get power again. They’re going to add so many letters to LGBTQ that there will be none left for other words.

I know we say that every single election, but it’s super extra double true this time.

That’s why we need every single person on our side. And yet, there are some conservatives saying we need to kick out from our coalition people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and Skeevy the Goo Covered Nazi Muslim.

But how are we going to win if we’re reducing our side?

Now, I know the arguments against them. They don’t even care about conservatism because they’re only obsessed with Israel. They chant “America First” but side with every enemy of America. They promote Islam for some reason. They smell weird. They are so low IQ, that basic human conversation with them is impossible.

And this is all true. But we’re trying to win elections here. Or build podcast audiences. And each person counts in that. Thus we can’t be choosy about who we make friends with.

And maybe it won’t be so bad. Yeah, they’re stupid, but maybe we can use that. Like dangle some keys in front of them to get their attention, and then tell them, “Know what Israel would really hate? If you moved these heavy boxes for me.”

See, we can use them for really simple labor tasks while we handle all the thinking stuff. And I know the smell is a huge problem, but we don’t have to get too close to them. We can mainly keep them in a basement and just drag them out when votes are needed. “Hey, the Jews would really hate it if you voted for centrist Republican Norm Whiteman.”

See? Easy! Just don’t ever imply anything that happens isn’t because of the Jews, because they hate that. Every time the sun sets, just shake your fist at the sky and yell, “The Jews took the sun!” And they’ll be placated and you can shove them in that basement and give them their podcasts until they’re needed again.

This is how we win: With the largest coalition of weird-smelling stupid losers.

And did another if there were no Republicans:

This was my first time really playing with Seedance 2.0 which is pretty great (can even take audio and video as reference input). It’s a bit closed down (had to use Grok’s Imagine for the few bits with someone famous), but very usable if you first generate reference people in AI to input into it. If I just had it generate people instead of giving it images of who you wanted, it would sometimes generate random celebrities (it really liked Bob Odenkirk), even though it blocks you from making videos of celebrities.

Anyway, hoping to do a bunch more of these. What would you like AI to simulate?

Despite the unpopularity of President Trump and a lot of his policies, the Democrats are still struggling against him as they’re seen as a bunch of weird psychos who don’t even like this country. So how can the Democrats turn things around? I have 9 easy steps to fix the party for them.

How to Fix the Democratic Party

1. Invite all the trans activists to a secret meeting. They’ve been a big problem for the Democratic Party, so it’s time to have a frank talk with them.

2. Discuss the need for a compromise. That’s what’s needed for the Democrats to win again — they can’t have the trans activists calling all the shots. They need to be told that politicians have to be allowed to take more common-sense stances on trans issues.

3. Get out of that room! As expected, at the mention of even the mildest compromise, they completely freaked out and threatened to kill themselves and others. Get out of there and shut the door behind you!

4. Seal them away for a thousand years. Oh, I forgot to mention earlier you’ll be having the meeting in an underground cavern with lots of powerful glyphs on the door. Now that you’ve locked all the trans activists inside, you can seal them away for a millennium, making them a problem for the Democrats far, far in the future (and, let’s be frank, the country will have collapsed from debt long before then).

5. Make the wording on the warning outside the seal very clear. You just need to make sure under no circumstances does anyone open that door. So write lots of warnings of how dangerous what’s sealed inside is (to political prospects). Hmm, maybe you went way over the top with the threats, and people will think you just made all that up so people won’t open the sealed door and find all the gold you hid inside.

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It’s kind of unclear if the Iran war is winding down or not, but still, we probably should start thinking about whom to have a war with next, as there are still a lot of enemies out there. Here are some suggestions for the next war:

Cuba — It’s Communist and really close by. Seems like an easy one if we’re looking for a fun pick-up war.

Russia — They used to be our big rival, but now they’re a bit pathetic and locked in a quagmire in Ukraine. Maybe it’s time to finally fulfill the promise of the 80s and take them out.

Canada — Another one nearby, so there aren’t big travel expenses. Plus, they have oil.

Mars — Technically, we don’t know of anyone to fight there, but still, it would be cool to have our first war against another planet. As soon as Elon gets us there, let’s declare war!

Mexico — A nearby one again (certainly closer than Mars), but unlike with other countries where we want something, with them, we want them to keep something (all their people). Plus, there are the cartels to take out. Ever seen Sicario? Fun movie!

The UK — They were our biggest enemy starting out, so maybe it’s time for a rematch. The way they’re getting, though, this may be too similar to all those wars we have in the Middle East.

China — This is a big one and won’t be an easy battle. Plus, a lot of stuff is going to get really expensive while we are at war with them. Better save this for after we run out of easier opponents.

Ourselves — Really, the only opponent worthy of the U.S. is ourselves, so maybe we should have another civil war.

Ever seen a little kid at an arcade?1 They’ll stand in front of a game cabinet with no credits in it and move the controls, thinking they’re actually playing the game. It’s the illusion of control, and it’s an innate part of us to fool ourselves into thinking we’re in control.

At least that one is harmless, but we also understand how a video game works and why what the child is doing has no effect, and also understand how to actually control the video game. Where intelligent adults run into trouble is when what they’re trying to control is a complex system. Like the human brain.

For a long while, the way to handle problems with the brain was a lobotomy. Now, this did have an actual effect on the human brain — it wasn’t just the illusion of control. But it still wasn’t real control because it was poking holes in something so complex that none of the doctors understood it. In the end, it just did more damage than good.

Which brings us to another complex thing like the brain that people are always trying to control: the economy.

The economy is basically the world’s biggest supercomputer — but more complex than a supercomputer. It’s like a brain itself. The economy has billions of people, every day, deciding what to buy, what to sell, where to work, what something is worth to them. All of that creates information — incredibly detailed information about what people want and what things actually cost to provide. And each economic transaction is like a neuron reacting to this info.

And wow does this work. The billions fed unlike at any time in human history — the wealth and tech we all have. And it chugs away with no one at the top controlling it all.

Which a lot of people see as a problem.

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Even though the U.S. is super advanced and civilized, there are still lots of violent dummies out there. Part of us defending against that is NATO, but what exactly is NATO? Here are all the facts you need to know…

• NATO stands for National American Tactical Organization… or something else that starts with N, A, T, and O.

• Initially gained lots of members with its popular “NATO is Great-o!” campaign.

• It was formed because Russia is kind of dumb and likes invading places and places don’t like getting invaded.

• With NATO, the agreement is if Russia gets all dumb and invades a country in NATO, they will all work together to fight Russia. That’s why it’s all countries in Europe, but somehow they tricked the U.S. into signing as well since we actually know how to fight.

• It seems kind of a gyp for the U.S. because we’re not even that near Russia — except for Alaska. So I guess if Russia invades Alaska, Belgium will come help us. Yay.

• The whole thing made Russia angry, because they’re like, “If I can’t invade NATO countries, then who am I supposed to invade?” Countries not in NATO, dummies!

• Apparently, Ukraine wanted to be in NATO, which Russia found very threatening because they are threatened by countries that don’t like be invaded, because again, Russia is like dumb and violent.

• But Ukraine was not in NATO when Russia invaded, so we didn’t have to send ground troops. We just sent money, which some people are angry about, but if the money had stayed in the U.S., it would have just been spent on making poor fat kids even fatter.

• Trump has talked about leaving NATO. I mean, we definitely don’t need Europe to help protect us from Russia. And Europe is now so full of Muslims that if Russia invaded them, it would be like Afghanistan all over again.

• If we do leave NATO, we can use all the money we save from that to finally set the Guinness World Record for fattest poor kids ever.

The Democrats are desperate to find a normal white man to run as a candidate. They think he will mean an easy election victory for them. But so far, they’ve struck out. They tried to act like Tim Walz was a normal midwesterner, but he was pretty fruity. Then they got Graham Platner in Maine, but he’s got a Nazi tattoo for some reason. And now they have James Talarico in Texas and they were like, “Oh, he’s a Christian,” but he’s the weirdest of the bunch going on about how Jesus is trans or something.

It’s like if there are normal white men out there, they’re not in the Democratic party. Still, I have a solution.

Frank’s 7 Step Plan for Democrats to Get a Normal White Man as a Nominee

1. Find a hobo who has been living under a bridge.

   

   You’re probably going, “Why a hobo living under a bridge?” Well, one of the biggest problems Dems have is that anyone they want to portray as normal probably wrote on social media during peak woke something like, “I love Latinx trans kids because they’re not white!” So you need someone who wasn’t on social media if you want to get away with saying someone is normal. So, the best solution: a hobo living under a bridge. Sure, he constantly yells obscenities at random passersby, but that’s not online, so it’s like it never happened.

2. Shave the hobo and put him in a suit.

   

   Still, you need the hobo to appear normal, but that just means clean him up and put him in a suit and don’t have him carry around his bindle anymore (assure him you’re look after it). See, he already looks like a normal candidate you’d like to have a beer with (just don’t let anyone get that close to him).

3. Teach him to be quiet and wave.

   

   Now that the cameras are on him, you don’t want him yelling all that craziness and shouting random obscenities, as it will get recorded and people will know he’s not normal. Thus, you simply have to teach him to be quiet and wave. Train him by saying if he’s nice and quiet and just waves, he gets a big bowl of hobo stew.

4. Make a list of policies to attach to him.

   

   Now here’s the fun part: You make a big list of all your dumb policy ideas and just attach it to him, this normal-seeming guy who just smiles and waves. Hopefully, everyone just focuses on how normal he looks and don’t worry much about the policies he comes with.

5. Oh no. He’s heard about your tax plan and thinks it’s bad.

   

   He’s shouting obscenities again, but now they seem more focused and at you! He thinks your taxes could ruin the economy, and it’s upset him because a bad economy means lower quality trash in the dumpsters for making hobo stew. Just tell him to calm down and that you know what you’re doing. As a nuclear option, you could threaten to burn his bindle if he doesn’t do as you say.

6. He’s attacking the DNC headquarters with a hobo army!

   

   Okay. Threatening his bindle went too far. He’s recruited all his hobo friends to come and storm the DNC headquarters and get his bindle back. Better lock yourselves in the supply closet and hope he doesn’t burn the whole place down.

7. Oh wow. He won!

   

   It turns out that the way he took charge and led an army to attack the DNC really resonated with voters. If you want him to vote the party line, though, I’d just stick to offering him hobo stew and stay away from his bindle.

Ninety-three-year-old Lord Ozwell E. Spencer wheeled himself to the center of the dais.

“Thank you all for attending the Umbrella Corporation quarterly shareholder meeting. Before we open the floor, I want to introduce the rest of today’s panel. To my left, Dr. William Birkin, Chief Science Officer.”

“I’m Dr. Kevin Morse,” the man corrected.

Spencer looked confused. “What happened to Birkin?”

“He mutated and was blown up,” Morse explained.

Spencer nodded. “Oh. Right. Anyway, to my right is Albert Wesker, Vice President of... Albert, remind me of your current title.”

Wesker adjusted his sunglasses — indoors, as usual. “Vice President of Strategic Bioweapon Applications and Forward-Facing Lethality Solutions.”

“A very important position,” Spencer said. “Now, on business, Q3 was a period of strategic repositioning for the company—”

“You got Raccoon City nuked,” said a man in the third row.

“As I said. Strategic repositioning.”

The man stood up. His lanyard read GERALD HENDRICKS — SERIES B INVESTOR. “I’ve been a shareholder for six years. When I invested, you pitched me on pharmaceuticals. The company is literally called Umbrella Pharmaceuticals. You showed me a slide deck about cancer research.”

“We remain deeply committed to the pharmaceutical space.”

“You made a giant snake.”

Spencer glanced at Morse. Morse studied his notes intensely.

“That was exploratory R&D,” Spencer said.

“It was a snake! A snake the size of a gymnasium. What’s the TAM on giant snakes? Who’s the customer? What’s the use case?”

A woman near the front raised her hand. “Karen Liu, pension fund manager. I have a similar concern. My analysts tell me you have a product called a ‘Licker.’ Can someone explain to me what a Licker does?”

Morse leaned into his microphone. “The Licker is a highly advanced bioorganic weapon with a prehensile tongue capable of—”

“So it licks people.”

“It’s more nuanced than that. We’re talking combat capable—”

“Combat? How is a Licker better than, like, a gun?” Liu asked.

“It’s intelligent and can seek out and destroy enemies on its own,” Morse explained.

“Does it follow orders?”

Morse hesitated. “Not... currently.”

Hendricks was still standing. “I want to go back to the Raccoon City issue. An entire American city is just gone. It’s a smoking crater. How is that not a material liability?”

Wesker leaned into his microphone. “We view Raccoon City as a proof of concept of the T-Virus’s effectiveness in a live environment.”

“And what’s the T-Virus again?”

“It’s the next step in human evolution,” Wesker stated. “It—”

“It turns people into zombies, right?” Liu asked.

“Yes, as a side effect, but—”

“We’ve had multiple zombie outbreaks — nearly threatening to end the world in a zombie apocalypse!” Hendricks said. “How does that help shareholder value?”

Spencer cleared his throat. “What Wesker is trying to convey is that the Raccoon City incident, while regrettable, generated invaluable field data—”

“I don’t want field data. I want a return on investment,” Hendricks said. “I could have put my money in Johnson & Johnson. You know what Johnson & Johnson has never done? Had a zombie outbreak destroy a city. Not once.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room.

Liu jumped back in. “I also want to flag the employee retention issue. Your attrition rate is — and I need someone to confirm this for me because I thought it was a typo — four hundred percent annually? Why do people keep leaving your company?”

“People like working for us,” Wesker stated. “It’s seldom that people leave. It’s more... being eaten.”

“Is that better?” Liu asked.

“I think it shows that people enjoy our innovative research so much, they willingly take on the risk of being eaten,” Spencer said.

A new voice piped up from the back. “Ted Morrison, retail investor. Quick question: Why so many underground labs? I’m counting seven different ones. That seems like huge unnecessary expenses to dig out these underground labs instead of traditional buildings on top of the ground, as Pfizer would have.”

“It’s a safety concern,” Morse said.

“Because everything you make turns against you,” Hendricks stated. “Which gets back to the central problem!”

“Not everything,” Wesker said, “The Nemesis program showed significant improvements in target acquisition and elimination.”

“Didn’t it try and fail to eliminate one woman in a tube top?” Liu asked. “How is that anything nearing a success?”

“She was a very difficult target,” Wesker answered. “At one point, the Nemesis had her severely injured, but she got some green herbs to heal her injuries. In the future, we plan—”

“Wait, slow down a second,” Hendricks interrupted. “She healed injuries with a green herb? Like what kind of injuries?”

“Cuts, broken bones,” Wesker said. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“You’re telling me there is a magic herb out there in Raccoon City that can heal any injury?” Hendricks asked with disbelief.

Wesker shrugged. “Apparently.”

“Why is that not your focus?!” Hendricks screamed.

“Yes, an herb that heals absolutely anything sounds way more profitable for a pharmaceutical company than tongue monsters!” Liu exclaimed. “You should forget these underground labs filled with dangerous failures and put your money into researching that.”

Spencer, Wesker, and Morse were quiet as they all considered this. Finally, Morse said, “If we injected the green herb with T-Virus, it could become large enough to overtake a city.”

Wesker nodded, and Spencer said, “Excellent idea!”

Hendricks sighed. “We need to elect a new board.”

The Strait of Hormuz has been in the news lately because of the war against Iran. If you’re like most Americans, you’ve never thought much about the Strait of Hormuz (or anything outside our borders, for that matter), so here are some important facts so you can talk about it now and sound smart.

Fun Facts About the Strait of Hormuz

• Was discovered by Bob Hormuz.

• “Straight” is misspelled because they don’t know English well in the Middle East.

• It’s actually not that straight but kind of curved.

• It’s controlled by Iran who only likes evil to be able to sail through it.

• Iran may close it because we blew up their Ayatollah (blowing up their Ayatollah is frowned upon in their religion).

• We said we were sorry, but we obviously didn’t mean it since we blew up the next Ayatollah.

• Protecting ships going through it is supposed to be a job for Aquaman, but he was kidnapped by the Houthis.

• It can be avoided by just using a plane, which is way better than a boat.

• They don’t have planes in the Middle East, though — they think they’re demons and throw rocks at them.

• If you find yourself surrounded by the Strait of Hormuz, begin paddling.

• On the other side of the Strait from Iran is the United Arab Emirates, but they can’t help as they’re too busy fighting their rival, the Divided Arab Emirates.

• The main thing shipped through the Strait of Hormuz is oil. The second biggest product shipped through it is terrorism.

• If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, that will cut off 25% of the world’s oil supply, which means even more people will have to buy Teslas and Elon will get even richer and his memes even danker.

• Iran has threatened to put mines in the Strait of Hormuz, but the mines would sink to the bottom, and the only thing that would walk on them would be like crabs.

• Oh, I guess there are special floating mines. People who like blowing stuff up think of everything!

• The last time the Strait of Hormuz was shutdown was in 2019 when someone on the internet said, “More like the Gay of Hormuz” and it completely devastated Iran.

• There has been talk about relocating the Strait of Hormuz to someplace other than the Middle East where there is less war, like the tropics.

• The current solution, though, is to get a new regime in charge of Iran who likes it when we blow up their Ayatollahs. A bunch of people there have to find that as funny as we do.

• The whole thing, though, shows the problems of having wars for oil in faraway places. We instead need wars for oil closer, like in Canada.

It feels like it’s taken forever, but I now have a draft of the fourth and final Superego that’s ready to be read by someone else. The first someone else to read it will be, as always, the lovely and talented SarahK (the alpha reader). After I get her feedback, I will be looking for beta readers and will ask for them here on my Substack in a later post. The beta copy of the novel will also be made available to all paid subscribers.

I’m really happy with my ending for the series, so hopefully SarahK likes it too and doesn’t trash it. It takes so long to go from coming up with ideas for a novel to getting someone else to finally read it, which is part of why I’m going to do something different with my next novel — the third Hellbender — and instead publish it here chapter by chapter as I write it. It will be a very different writing process for me — my usual first rough draft of a novel is full of holes and I can’t do that this time — so we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, thanks again to all the subscribers of Frank Talk for supporting my writing, and I can’t wait until you can finally read the last Superego. Who knows what lies ahead with my writing, but so far, AI can’t imitate my style and humor at all, so this writing may be the last thing I have left after the singularity.

It still seems a long way away, but 2028 is the Democrats’ chance to lick their wounds and recover after Trump’s second term. But who are their top candidates to be their next presidential nominee and lead the party? Let’s take a look at the names out there and their pros and cons.

Chuckles the Baby-Eating Clown

Pros: Seen as strong on women’s rights.

Cons: White.

South American Communist Revolutionary Alejandro Rojas

Pros: Has organizational skills and excites the left-wing base.

Cons: Doesn’t know English and isn’t an American citizen.

Gavin Newsom

Pros: Charismatic. Fights back.

Cons: It could sink his campaign in the general election if it ever becomes public knowledge that he’s the governor of California.

Mecha Hitler

Pros: Great record of being Pro-Palestine.

Cons: Needs regular maintenance.

They/Them

Pros: Upsets the genders norms that need overturning.

Cons: Likely to kill self/others.

AOC

Pros: Young and influential.

Cons: Need to work hard to keep her alive until Election Day as every time it rains she stares straight up at the rain with her mouth open and almost drowns.

Militant Farid Hussain

Pros: Stands with the left in hating their two least favorite countries: Israel and the USA.

Cons: Religious.

Kamala Harris

Pros: High name recognition. Already has experience campaigning for president.

Cons: Nothing. They should definitely run her again.

So, we started a new war with Iran. A lot of people are saying we shouldn’t have done that, and it’s an illegal war and morally wrong. The U.S. can’t just attack a country for any reason. In fact, by basic morality, there are only seven legitimate reasons for war, and anything outside of those reasons is an illegal war.

So here are the legitimate reasons for war:

Legitimate Reasons for War

1. We were attacked. If a country attacks us, we can attack them back. That’s just basic tit for tat morality.

2. We think we’re going to be attacked. Of course, if we wait until we get attacked, Americans are going to get hurt. So, if we think a country is going to attack us, we can get ‘em first before any Americans are harmed.

3. Probably not going to attack us, but could. So maybe it doesn’t seem like a country is going to attack us, but maybe one day they could. Do we really want to wait until the day before they attack us to do something? We may not stop them in time. Better to do something years in advance.

4. Need oil. I mean, this is just basic. Not everyone drives a Tesla, so we still need oil. Could we just ask countries to give it to us? I guess, but in the Middle East, they speak Arabic or something, and maybe we don’t know that. So the simplest solution is to just roll in with tanks and take the oil.

5. There’s just something about a country we don’t like. A lot of countries out there simply suck, and we don’t like them. Does that mean we should have a war with them? Probably. I mean, we’re the greatest country ever ever, so why should we share this world with countries we don’t like? That’s not fair to us.

6. Bored. Being the greatest country ever can be monotonous at times, so sometimes we just need something to do. War will keep us entertained for a few days.

So those are the legitimate reasons for war. I guess it’s only six reasons. I really thought I had seven, but I was wrong. If you came here for seven reasons and are disappointed you only got six, I’m sorry.1

Anyway, going by those reasons for war, Iran covers a few of them, making it definitely a legitimate war. I don’t make the rules. Well, I guess I made these, but I don’t feel like changing them.

Elon Musk is thinking of building a city on the moon. I don’t know if Elon looked into the moon, but it’s not actually an easy place to build.

As you may know, I am one the leading experts in moonology and know all about the moon. Thus I’d though I’d share my wisdom about what’s needed to build on the room.

Tips for Building on the Moon

• Bring air. A lot of people don’t know this, but there is actually no air on the moon. You’re probably wondering how the moon men get air, but they don’t. That’s why all the moon men are dead and the moon is barren. Some suggest we could get air from the water on the moon, but that’s nonsense because air is a gas and water is a liquid — two completely different things.

• Bring food. Early science said the moon was made of green cheese, but this was never corroborated by later science as no giant space cow was found that could make that amount of cheese. In fact, later exploration found nothing to eat there at all, so make sure to bring some food from Earth — the only currently known planet where food exists.

• Don’t bring rocks. You may be thinking, “I should bring some rocks in case I need to throw them at noisy kids on the moon,” but there are in fact lots of rocks already there so bringing any would just be unnecessary weight better used for that air and food I already mentioned you do need to bring.

• Study Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, people fly around while doing kung fu. It ends up, even if you’re really good at kung fu, you can’t actually do that because of Earth’s gravity, and the effect was all done with wires to trick gullible audiences. But on the moon, there is little gravity so you can fly around while doing kung fu for real, so make sure to study that movie for how to do flying kung fu as you’re going to be in a bunch of fights over the limited amount of air and food since you didn’t listen to me and brought a bunch of rocks instead of more of that.

• Be careful procrastinating. Often when I have something small to do, I’ll be like, “Eh. I’ll do it tomorrow,” and then play video games. But a day on the moon is like a month long, so if you put off doing the dishes until tomorrow, you could go a whole month of eating over the sink.

• Load up on silver bullets. Basic science says that if you land on the moon, that counts as being exposed to the full moon all the time. So if someone has lycanthropy1, he will instantly turn into a werewolf when on the moon. So you need silver bullets to shoot all the werewolves that could emerge when you land on the moon. I guess you could also have a better screening process to make sure no one on your crew has lycanthropy, but that might be considered “discriminatory” and against the law. Just have the silver bullets.

• Nuclear shielding. It is possible that while on the moon, someone may nuke it.2 So, it’s just a good idea to make sure your buildings there can shield you from nuclear blasts and radiation. So when loading up building supplies from Home Depot before heading to the moon, find a guy in an orange frock and ask him if the stuff you got will survive a nuclear blast. If not, have him show you the aisle where that is.

• Maybe come up with a name. It’s kind of weird how the moon still doesn’t have like a proper sort of name you capitalize and everything. It’s like having a dog around you just call “the dog.” If we’re going to live there, it should have an actual name. I’m not sure what’s a good name, though. Rocky?

Iran is evil. It has been evil for some time ever since seeing the weakness of Jimmy Carter and going, “Here’s our opportunity to be evil and no one can stop us!”

Many have thought that one day we’d have to have a war with Iran because of all of their evil, but so far we haven’t had a full war with them and have just blown up their nuclear facilities (with the help of our cool friends in the region, Israel).

But Iran continues to be extra evil, now slaughtering thousands of their own people for just wanting the Iranian government to be a bit less evil.

So that brings us to the big question: Should we blow up the Ayatollah?

Now, for those who don’t know, the Ayatollah is the main religious leader of Iran, and since their religion is pretty terrible, he is the main source of all their evil.

So, being the main source of evil, blowing him up should make the country less evil (fewer evil? no, I think this time I used less right).

And how would we blow him up? Probably a cruise missile. What I gather from the name is that a cruise missile is a missile that “cruises” through the air. I’m not sure how this makes it different from other missiles, but my understanding is that we can make the cruise missile go to a precise location, such as where the Ayatollah is making dumb and bad religious proclamations.

There are some objections to this, though. For one, won’t blowing up the religious leader of Iran be considered an act of war? To that, all I can say is, “Who knows?” I mean, how can we know what goes through the minds of people over there? The fact that they got someone like Ayatollah leading them says they’re not thinking straight. Also, when we blew up their nuclear facilities, they seemed fine with that. So maybe they’re more chill than we think.

The other objection is won’t they just appoint another Ayatollah who is just as bad as the first one? That is possible, but then we can just launch another cruise missile. We have a whole bunch of them. Maybe after enough Ayatollah’s explode, they’ll be like, “Eh. Not worth it.”

A final objection is if we start blowing up evil leaders in one country, won’t we be expected to blow up all the evil leaders in the world? You may be right. There are something like 200 countries in the world, and a cruise missile costs like one million dollars. So if thing go really wrong and we have to blow up all the world leaders because they all suck, that’s like $200 million dollars. We can afford that, but it’s not nothing.

Still, if the worst case scenario is we’ll be out $200 million if blowing up the Ayatollah gets out of hand, I think we should try it. He’s evil and he’d be a lot less evil exploded. It’s a simple moral equation, and it’s time America got back to basics.

There is a lot of anxiety about our AI future, but there is optimism, too. I know Elon Musk is planning on a future of abundance — where basically everyone is rich — and it is a possibility.

I mean, we have AI that is approaching being able to do any job that involves sitting in front of a computer. And right now many companies are working on robots that, combined with that AI, will in the not-too-distant future be able to do even jobs that require physical work. We’re rapidly approaching a future where, if any work needs to be done, you don’t hire someone — you simply build a worker.

Now, some are seeing this as some apocalypse between the haves and the have-nots, where a few will control all the capital and have no need for anyone else. Poor people can’t even be underpaid servants because robots will still be cheaper and easier to maintain.

The other, happier possibility is basically we’ll all be rich. Since the robots can work tirelessly and produce as much of anything as we want, we’ll basically all be rich and live in abundance. There will not be haves and have-nots because we’ll have so much of everything that money will be basically meaningless — it will be like a Star Trek future with no money.

Let’s focus on this future as it’s more fun to talk about. It sounds pretty great — we’ll all be like those people in Downton Abbey who don’t actually have jobs but just a bunch of people who work for them.

But how mechanically would an abundance future work? It would seem money would have no point when we can just make things, but I don’t see how we can organize without it because the point of money is not just buying things but conveying information.

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