Month: April 2026

RoboDog! Coming to a mega-farm near you?

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If AI wasn’t so existentially frightening, it’d occasionally be downright funny. For example: robotic dogs patrolling mega-farms.

Here’s what one of these adorable puppies looks like.

Aw. So cute. RoboDogs are being deployed at Bayer’s 8,000+ acre GMO-seed-corn operation in Hawaii to monitor wildfires, wild boars, and wild-eyed protesters.

Protesters? Not really. Even though a 2015 poll found that 70% of Hawaiins support stricter controls and mandatory labeling of GMO foods, current opposition to Bayer is focused primarily on advocacy and legal action. Continue Reading →

Wait, you mean it CAN happen here?

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This week, I found a new way to speak out against the rise of fascism – or rather, a new way found me.

Last month, John Earl Robinson with the Iowa Stage Theater Company asked me to read the lead part in a 2016 adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here — a play about America’s imagined (but frighteningly realistic) descent into fascism in the 1930s.

This past Monday, I read the part of Doremus Jessup at the Company’s first Scriptease of 2026. Jessup is a newspaper editor who at first dismisses the threat of fascism. Yet after Buz Windrip is elected President and institutes martial law, Jessup joins the opposition — and nearly gets killed. Other resistance fighters do, indeed, die. Everyone suffers. It’s not a pretty picture, though the play ends with a modicum of encouragement.

Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here in response to the spread of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, and as fascism in the US was gaining strength and momentum. Continue Reading →

If robots could vote

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(01:56) – IF ROBOTS COULD VOTE, we’d surely land our first AI president in 2028. Wait, never mind. The Tech Bros found an easier way to take over the government: pay Congress to kill efforts to regulate AI.

For fun, and because I enjoy irony, I searched “tech industry donations to Congress” and AI gave me this:

“The technology industry has heavily increased its financial influence in Washington, with top firms and executives pouring hundreds of millions into lobbying and campaign donations to shape regulations regarding artificial intelligence, antitrust issues, and data privacy. Major tech firms spent over $260 million on federal lobbying from 2020 through 2024, with spending in 2024 alone reaching $61.5 million, a 13% increase over the previous year.”

Ok, so I’ll give AI an A+ for transparency — and Congress an F for failing to place guardrails on what has truly become an existential threat. Continue Reading →

An interview with Mark Jacob, and a press release on Summit’s CO2 lies

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Mark and Jeff do a great job helping to navigate difficult conversations. Why difficult? In part because we have to call out Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, for what he is: a full-fledged White nationalist.

Please give the show a listen. And check out Mark’s Substack, STOP THE PRESSES. He’s doing important work and we oughta help land him additional exposure.

Unrelated to this week’s program, but of great interest and concern to those of us in the upper Midwest, here’s the press release I sent out today about the Summit CO2 pipeline. Can you share it with at least one member of the media or blogiverse? (I think I made up that last word, but you know what I mean). Thanks! Continue Reading →

Randy Evans is an annoying loudmouth

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RANDY EVANS IS AN ANNOYING LOUDMOUTH
When it comes to freedom of speech, Randy Evans is perhaps Iowa’s biggest loudmouth. Furthermore, if you’re a public official operating in secret or treading on people’s First Amendment rights, Randy can be downright annoying.

Those are two of the qualities I admire about Randy, who writes a weekly column as president of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. On this week’s radio show/podcast, he and I discuss two of his recent columns calling out public officials for a lack of transparency.

NEWTON VS THE FIRST AMENDMENT
In a March 30 column, Respectful or not, America enables criticism and dissent, Randy writes, “[Noah] Petersen went to two [Newton] City Council meetings in 2022 to express his frustrations during the public comment period. Despite Petersen’s calm approach, both times the mayor ordered him to be quiet, then had Petersen arrested, placed in handcuffs and led out of the council meeting…” Continue Reading →