3/3/25 Blog: A Terrifying Prospect From Our Futurist Thomas Frey

WHAT WOULD BE THE MOST DANGEROUS DISASTER YOU CAN THINK OF? Whatever it is, I guarantee it isn't as scary as the scenario our futurist Thomas Frey lays out here. If you want to find out more about Thomas just click here.

WHEN CAMPING BECOMES A PROBLEM The Douglas County Board of Commissioners loves to do things and tell DougCo residents that people REALLY, REALLY want these things but when anyone asks for ANY proof of the people who supposedly want these things it's crickets. I've had this experience personally with Abe Laydon telling me he would send such documentation right over and I'm still waiting years later. To her credit, Lora Thomas ALWAYS backed up whatever she told me with actual documents, but that made her impossible for these two remaining board members to work with her and she's gone now. Now we've got another situation where the BOCC is telling folks that other folks have been BEGGING to camp in a huge open area in Douglas County. Except when someone did an open records request almost all the documentation was against it. I've got reporter Jenn Schumann on at 2:30 to talk about what she found, and more importantly what hasn't been found, when it comes to the move to bring some fire prone, house filled land onto the camping scene.

MORE ON THE ZELENSKY DUSTUP Boy did I do a deep dive this weekend into what happened Friday. First off, you need to watch this interview between Kaitlan Collins of CNN and Sec of State Marco Rubio:

HOW MUCH OF THIS IS THE FAULT OF THE OBAMA-BIDEN FOREIGN POLICY? This is an interesting history lesson of how much we've meddled in Ukrainian affairs and it's worth your time.

The fallout has put the EU on notice that they are going to have to take care of their own backyard, which is good, but even UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer recognizes that without OUR backing, Europe doesn't have the strength to do this. Which is just kind of sad. But Europe welcomed with open arms the leader who was dismissed from the White House. Starmer admitted on Saturday that Trump is right that this war can't be won by Ukraine. Read this:

Earlier, Starmer told BBC News that he had agreed with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron that the U.K. and France would work on a Ukraine peace plan to then be presented to -- and discussed with -- the U.S. The prime minister added that "one or two" other nations may be involved in drafting the plan "to stop the fighting."

In a statement, Starmer's office said the prime minister will "intensify his efforts in pursuit of a just and lasting peace in Ukraine" while hosting Sunday's summit in the British capital.

Let Europe take the lead on getting a deal done, as they are essentially funding both sides of the war. Check out this story from last week:

ZELENSKY REALIZED BY FRIDAY NIGHT THAT HE HAD MADE A HUGE ERROR But still fell short of apologizing in the interview with Brett Baier.

EUROPE IS TRYING TO COALESCE AROUND SOME SORT OF PLAN This from the BBC shows just how dependent Europe is on US to take care of them when it comes to war. Read this part:

Starmer said that the idea of sending troops to Ukraine - which would include boots on the ground and planes in the air - had the backing of several parties, but he was careful to leave it to individual countries to discuss the matter internally. Scandinavian countries have already signalled they would be open to the idea. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was keeping an "open mind" on the proposal, while Sweden's Ulf Kristersson said his country was ready to provide Ukraine with security guarantees – if it had the backing of the US. (emphasis mine)

Italy's Giorgia Meloni would much rather push for another summit that includes the US than discuss a European contingent in Ukraine – a possibility which she says "perplexes" her. And Poland – which has long been one of Kyiv's most vocal supporters – has already ruled out sending soldiers, although it put few boundaries on humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. European leaders will now have a few days to digest the latest developments before they meet again in Brussels on Thursday for a special meeting on defence, at which Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will present what she has called "a comprehensive plan on how to rearm Europe".

Good luck with that. I hope you can pull it off when you're giving your residents generous benefits INSTEAD of paying for their own defense.

TRUMP SEEMS TO BE DONE And that is the vibe he gave here after the Friday nonsense.

We'll see what happens next.

PLEASE ADD TWO STEP SIGN IN TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS I know it's a pain, but a dear friend of mine just had her Facebook account hacked and the scammers posted a fake post where "she" said she was helping liquidate her uncle's estate and listed a bunch of stuff well under market value for "sale" and asked people to send deposits. When she FINALLY got her account back (Facebook was NO help at all for like a week) she found out a friend of a friend had wired the hackers $30k. First off, secure your account! Second off, if you see something on FB that seems too good to be true, it is. Either text or call the person directly (that's what I did because I knew the hackers would lie on FB if they could) before you buy or send any money to anyone.

WHEN GOVERNMENT MAKES A MOCKERY OF OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS And this is the move by government who hate transparency. Jefferson County charged over $2500 for one records request. The Attorney General's office tried to charge one journalist $30,000 for his. All this does is make it impossible to hold government accountable, which is EXACTLY why they do it. They don't want us digging into their business, they want us to sit down and shut up. Read this for more.

XCEL DOESN'T REALLY WANT TO SELL THE ZUNI STEAM PLANT As it's on the market for far more that is reasonable considering the amount of mitigation that would need to be done to the "historic" building. And they say they will pull the listing in 30 days, which is absurd for a project of this magnitude. I fully expect them to move to tear it down on day 31.

YES FEDERAL WORKERS, YOU NEED TO BE BACK IN THE OFFICE This is a great column about why federal workers especially need to be back in the office. Many, many companies, including the one I work for, are bringing people back into the office at least part time. So why should government workers be different? This column lays out what an impact this would have on downtown in terms of bringing it back to life.

ANOTHER PERSON HOPS INTO THE COLORADO GOP CHAIR RACE And one person is firmly OUT, which is Dave Williams, who announced he was not seeking another term. Thank God for that small miracle. Lori Saine of Weld County has hopped in, which bodes well for Brita Horn, who isn't quite as MAGA-y as Darcy Schoenig or Saine, so she may get the sane vote. Not that she doesn't support President Trump, because she does, but she's definitely focused more on results than purity tests and interpersonal relationship destruction.

TWO REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE FOR GOVERNOR State Senator Mark Baisley and Rep. Scott Bottoms have announced they are running for Governor. Both are very conservative with a track record that includes a lot of social issue work, which I find concerning in a statewide election. I am not familiar with Bottoms but Baisley has tried to bring some good bills up only to have them killed.

SOLDIERS ARE DEPLOYING TO THE SOUTHERN BORDER They will be heading down from Fort Carson to help with border security. This as Mexico is finally starting to do something about drug cartels, as written about here in the New York Times:

One cartel leader says he’s trying to figure out how to protect his family in case the American military strikes inside Mexico. Another says he’s already gone into hiding, rarely leaving his home. Two young men who produce fentanyl for the cartel say they have shut down all their drug labs.

A barrage of arrests, drug seizures and lab busts by the Mexican authorities in recent months has struck the behemoth Sinaloa Cartel, according to Mexican officials and interviews with six cartel operatives, forcing at least some of its leaders to scale back on fentanyl production in Sinaloa state, their stronghold.

The cartels have sown terror across Mexico and caused untold damage in the United States. But here in Culiacán, the state capital, the dynamic seems to be shifting, at least for now. Cartel operatives say they’ve had to move labs to other areas of the country or temporarily shut down production.

Good. Let them be afraid. Let their businesses suffer. These people are the merchants of death and deserve only bad things to happen to them. Funny how when Mexico really wants to go after cartels they can. They just needed the right motivation apparently.

THE OSCARS WERE GLAMOROUS AND INTERESTING LAST NIGHT With the only political claptrap coming from Darryl Hannah, who hasn't made a movie in a hot minute. My review of the outfits follows:

First off, Ariana Grande looked like a lamp at my Nana's house. Miss.

Cynthia Erivo looked like she was wearing a punctuation mark.

Timothee Chalamet, who has great style normally, looked like he was dressed by the Muppets.

Whoopee looked like someone made her a dress out of landscaping fabric.

Whoever talked Emma Stone into this dress the exact same color as her skin and completely devoid of shape needs to be fired.

The best look of the entire night (and there a lot of other women and men who looked glam and fab, I'm just not naming them) was 100% Selena Gomez, and she was STUNNING. She oozed old Hollywood glamour.

Oh, and they gave out awards, with Anorah being the big winner. You can find them all here, but this acceptance speech was far and away one of the best every by Kieran Culkin, who won Best Supporting Actor.

DIGITAL DETOX IS A THING NOW And we used to call it "going outside" but now we call it "going outside without your phone" and it's becoming a thing. Read more about how brands are trying to capitalize on this here.

IT'S OKAY TO CALL BLACK PEOPLE COONS NOW If you're a black pastor who doesn't like Trump. I learned that from this article.

WHO DOESN'T HAVE A VACATION WEDDING RING? This story is about women who have less expensive fakes made of their wedding rings so they can travel without having to worry about the real thing getting stolen. Mmmkay, but you can also just buy a simple, cheap band to wear on vacation, or do what I do and just don't wear jewelry on vacation. You're still married if you don't wear a ring, trust me.

JOHNNY CARSON'S LEGACY This was really good on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday.

THE FASTEST WAY TO GET DEMENTIA This is yet another fantastic interview from Diary of a CEO. I love this podcast.

JOHN CRIST ON INTERNET SAVIORS This is so good.

70s KIDS ARE THE TOUGHEST KIDS And Karen Morgan lays it all out in a funny way.