Gotta kick-start things here, clearly, as the weekend just past was an all-time low for reader participation: just 19 comments, not counting my own replies, spread over eight posts. This was especially disappointing after the previous week of anomalous traffic at a level hearkening back to those halcyon days when progressives hung out here and hadn’t fled to Bluesky because they couldn’t handle having their knee-jerk cant challenged. Of course, the explosion of traffic was all bot-driven: it mostly came from China and Vietnam.
For this week’s potpourri, I decided to sample New York Times stories exclusively, first, because I got no sleep last night and am uncharacteristically lazy, even for me; second, because it will remind you (I don’t need any reminding) what a perpetual Democratic, progressive, “resistance,” Trump Derangement-spreading propaganda agent the Times is, and third, because for now, anyway, any article subscribers link to gets past the paywall.
Let us commence…
Ethics Alarms 
I know that you are concerned with numbers of comments. I continue to want to comment on your posts, but typically struggle to find time to say something well thought out and relevant. I am raising and homeschooling 5 kids and now hold two part time jobs, one of which theoretically pays (haven’t seen the paycheck yet). Time for decent analysis is hard to come by right now. I still read your stuff and email links to posts that people in my circle would find relevant.
”Gotta kick-start things here, clearly, as the weekend just past was an all-time low for reader participation: just 19 comments, not counting my own replies, spread over eight posts.”
Jack, you moron, you act like a tyrant and a bully, so you alienate people quite well disposed to you (and your often marvelous contributions). The participation in your blog will continue to decline — until you post an apology addressed to me, a most wonderful participant, cancelled when you were in a bad mood (most of the time).
It is 5:30 Pm my time. I’ll give you till the same time and date in 2027. See? How generous I am?
BTW the Iran debacle is deepening, darkening. You should pay more attention, jerk. 😆
Regarding bike lanes, the Twin Cities has its ups and downs. There is the Grand Rounds system that is 51 miles long:
https://www.minneapolisparks.org/parks-destinations/trails-parkways/grand_rounds_scenic_byway_system/
As it is bi-directional, so Minneapolis must have had 102 of the 108 miles that existed in 2000. It is really a great system.
Then, they decided to screw with the roads. Downtown Minneapolis used to be a series of alternating one-way streets. Kind of annoying for new drivers but easy enough to get the hang of. Then, they put in light rail down one street, which forced buses onto other streets, eliminating the “one-way” for busses. Then, they started adding bike lanes to these one way streets but the bike lanes had to go between the traffic lanes and the metered parking.
So, yes, climate change hysteria, not DEI, has ruined driving in downtown Minneapolis.
(And, yes, it annoys me that the administration would attribute it to DEI. It shows a level of thoughtlessness that you see on the left, where everything is white supremacy, privilege, climate change and Epstein.)
-Jut
Among the Democrats arsenal of ignorance is the seeming inability to allow for the fact that two things can be true at the same time. One can support many of President Trump’s policy positions while still disagreeing with the way he handled the 2020 election.
My 95-year old grandmother is the sweetest woman in the world (She reads biographies of celebrities and whites out the dirty words.) She voted for Trump. She approves of some of the work he’s doing. She also admitted to me a few weeks ago, “I think his personality leaves a lot to be desired.”
Me, too, Grandma. And saying so doesn’t mean I’m wrong for supporting him.
She also admitted to me a few weeks ago, “I think his personality leaves a lot to be desired.”
Most Presidents of the USA had unusual personalities, many of them high on the narcissism spectrum. Such a personality is needed for the office of POTUS, and most like also for governors and members of Congress. I do not think politics is the right environment for choirboys.
Item 3- Either a can of spray paint or a BB gun ( or greater) would fix the problem of the intrusive camera. Any bank robbery movie can show you the way!
You frame this as an either-or proposition.
Did you know that they make guns designed for recreational shooting that, instead of firing hard projectiles, fire small balls of paint? No license is required to own one.
It can be both! 🙂
–Dwayne
thanks for the reminder, there is a paint ball arean near by, i will check it out.
1. Agreed about the tennis example and the headline. Regarding the bots and scalpers, though… Clearly whoever invented the bots that let them gain possession of all of the tickets is an innovative capitalist and job-creator who deserves to profit from acquiring all the tickets. You wouldn’t suggest that we limit the amount of tickets they can obtain through their own hard work and creativity, or worse, redistribute the tickets to people who haven’t earned them, would you?
I’m sorry about the lack of comments. In my case, there were a few times recently that I wanted to comment, but I fall back to this ‘philosophy’.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak (or comment) and to remove all doubt.”
In my experience, the majority of people are fine being challenged on knee-jerk beliefs as long as you aren’t a jerk about it. If you feel the need to be a jerk, first reflect on why the disagreement is important to you. What are the outcomes you fear? You don’t need to justify your concerns; those are your anchor values and you deserve to have them addressed.
For the moment, though, set those aside and look for the outcomes that other people fear. They’ve got anchor values too, and when you understand what those are you will be able to show them that you take them seriously, that you’re not as ignorant or spiteful as you believe each other to be. After that, you can start voicing your own concerns, and other people will take them seriously.
RE: #2 (Cameras)
I’ve literally had the complete inverse situation with one of my neighbors.
I have a camera on the front of my house which is capable of panning, tilting, and an impressive zoom capability. Because of where it’s mounted, the best default position to get the best view of the front of the house is on a diagonal across the front yard which also points it directly at a neighbor’s house across the street.
A while back he came to me and asked if I had any footage of his house from a certain date and time because he’d noticed that some things around his carport had been inexplicably moved around. (He suspected it was his own kids and/or their friends but wanted to make sure.)
I had to tell him that, no, I don’t have any footage of anything that happened at his house. While the camera is fully capable of recording the whole front of his house and zooming in hard enough to read license plates clearly from 200-250 feet away, I had deliberately set it so it tilts downward enough that the top of the frame only just captures the street and sidewalk, but his house and front yard is out of view.
You see, I thought it best to respect my neighbor’s privacy and not capture a running log of all the goings-on at his house–and in doing so, I disappointed my neighbor.
Silly me.
–Dwayne
I have no problem with bike lanes (except when they’re ridiculously narrow, like 12 inches or less).
The problem I have is with the bikers — they regularly flout and ignore traffic laws. It is almost rare for them to stop at red lights, rather than blithely running the light. Or just cycling down the center of the auto lane, making it potentially unsafe for me to pass.
Pedestrians, though, are even worse. It’s not so much that they will cross roads willy nilly — they seem to do so without ever looking up to see if there’s traffic coming. They just assume no one would dare run them down.
OK, a little exaggeration — but I stand by the thrust of my post.