I dunno, expecting total honesty from an entire country seems like too much to ask, especially when it’s hot out.

Not to worry – climate change submerged it long ago. No, really. One of the hundreds of predictions of climate scientists that have come true! Honest. The UN gave them millions in return.

Just kidding. Except for them getting millions. They did.

https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/07/more-winning-us-budget-posts-27-billion.html

In the geography contest, I thought sure that India crossed the equator. No. Also that Equatorial Guinea (duh) would be there. Also no. But I did at least get Gabon and both versions of the Congo. It looks like a good follow-up trivia question might be: which country capital is closest to the equator? Kampala, Quito and whichever town on Nauru is the capital there seem to be the candidates.

That section about Grok and Tesla is very interesting; paging Dr. Huxley and the other neophiles interested in AI…

However, I also don’t believe these are jobs “Americans won’t do,” and I am skeptical that only opening them to citizens would cause huge cost increases.

When I went to the University of Illinois in the ’80s I met “farm kids” for the first time. Most of them did agricultural work over summer break. “Walking beans” and “detassling corn” were two, common duties I recall hearing. I, on the other hand, did work in the city over summer break; restaurants, gas stations, construction, hotels… What my rural friends were doing can’t be different from what migrants do today, can it? U.S. teen-agers were willing to do that work then and, I assume, they earned minimum wage, like I did in the city. And in the city I was doing hospitality and construction.

This was all very normal then, and in decades prior.

Sounds a lot like my son who has grown to a fine man, husband and father.