Meet The Press: Social Media.

The January 1, 2023, episode of Meet The Press was a special on the social media companies.

It was truly frightening, and it featured politicians in Congress from the left and right who were in agreement on that.

Well worth listening to.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2022. The Russo Ukrainian War Edition, Part Eight. The one in which the Russian forces collapse and Putin puts his finger on the nuclear trigger.

October 4, 2022

Russo Ukrainian War

When this war started, I never thought, several months later, we'd be seriously looking at a situation in which Ukrainian forces stood a chance of completely driving the Russian military out of territory that Russia has been occupying since 2014.

Nor, frankly, had anyone else.

But it's begging to look as if they might.  Indeed, it's more likely than not.

This is an example of Western military training, Ukrainian resolve, and the fact that the Russian army sucks, and always has, exercising its influence. Ukraine, it appears, is about to triumph in its second offensive in less than a month, and this one stands to expel the Russians from Ukraine,

Which means that a desperate Putin, who has painted himself into a corner, may be about to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Not until this past week would I have made that statement.  But I am now.  The man is unhinged from reality, and has left himself no choice, other than to act in a decent moral fashion or a manifestly evil one. But as observers of history and politics well know, at some point some people have so sold their souls such that the truth and morality no longer have any meaning.

Putin may have sold his soul long ago that reality no longer matters to him.

It won't work, but we're about to enter, maybe, the most slippery slope we have since . . . well ever.  More slippery than the Cuban Missile Crisis, and certainly slipperier than Able Archer.

When, um I mean if, Putin orders the use of tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will reply in force, by destroying Russian ground assets in Ukraine and naval assets in the Black Sea, which may then mean that the current war expands, possibly, into a general European war.  And if this war has proven anything, it's that the Russian military is so incredibly bad it won't be able to do anything whatsoever about it.

Of course, I suppose, it could retaliate with nuclear weapons, which I don't think it will, but which is a possibility of course.

At any rate, at this point, Russia appears to be very badly losing the war against Ukraine on territory that voted to leave Russia in 1991 but which Putin's Russia has been seeking to reclaim, and partially had.  Now, Putin's miscalculated war, whose calculations were based on the Russian army amounting to something as it last had . . . well never, seems to be going completely amiss.  Putin has left, however, his country very little choice.  He can't negotiate because he's declared the territory to be part of Mother Russia, and he can't win, as the Russian army is as bad as it has ever been.  The only thing he has left, as noted, are nuclear weapons.

Remarkably, Western military analysts do not seem particularly scared even while acknowledging the possibility, which should give us some comfort. Having long pondered a low yield nuclear war, they seem comfortable with one occurring, with only one side using them.

Let's hope it doesn't occur, and that God may help us all.

Господи, помоги нам всем.

Слава Україні!

Oct 4, cont:

Perhaps coincidentally, reports this morning report the movement of weapons from a nuclear missile unit, although at least in a Western army, such weapons would not be tactical nuclear weapons.  And Russian ballistic missile was deployed in the Arctic.  If these reports are correct, they are likely meant as warnings to the west, which won't and shouldn't be heeded.

Elon Musk, who proposed a peace plan on Twitter, received an enormous backlash, including from Ukrainian officials.  He called Crimea part of Russia since the 1780s, and uniting it "Khrushchev's mistake".  His plan also called for a UN administered vote on succession of those areas recently claimed to be annexed by Russia.

It was in fact conquered by the Russian Empire in 1783, but it had a distinct ethnic nature at the time.  It was its own political subdivision inside the Soviet Union, although many Crimean Tartars were deported by the USSR after World War Two. It voted to leave Russia and join Ukraine in 1991 and had the status of a political subdivision until invaded and occupied by the Russians in 2014.

Musk has been taking a lot of flak on Twitter recently. This comes just after a spat with economist Robert Reich.

Oct 4, cont:

Washington Post headline from today:

Ukraine hammers Russian forces into retreat on east and south fronts

October 5, 2022

Putin signed the annexation order on the partially occupied territories yesterday.

October 5, 2022 cont.

The Ukrainians have broken through at Svatove in Luhansk.  Basically, the Russians are coming unglued.

October 8, 2022

A giant truck explosion has damaged the Crimea Bridge, the only land route over the Black Sea to Crimea.

October 9, 2022

Sergei Surovikin, who previously led Russian forces in Syria, has been placed in command of the effort in Ukraine.   He'd also previously led the Russian effort in southern Ukraine.  Recently, he's been in command of Russia's air and space assets.

October 10, 2022

Russia's reply to the truck bombing of the Crimea Bridge has been a missile offensive on Ukrainian targets, many of which are simply civilian targets.

Russia has effectively reverted to the practices of the Second World War in regard to target acquisition.  I've noted it before here, but I regard the targeting of civilian targets from the air, by anybody, during World War Two to have been criminal in nature.  Collateral damage, unfortunately, is another matter.

There's no excuse whatsoever for it now.

The truck bombing remains of unclear origin.  Nobody has said anything to this effect, but it appears to likely have been a suicide bombing, which is generally out of character for the Ukrainian war effort. Some Russian sources feel that it included Russian dissident elements in its organization, and it may have.  It may very well have been an independent or semi-independent act.

October 11, 2022

Iran

Widespread protests in Iran have extended to the nation's refineries.

Russo Ukrainian War

A second day of Russian missile attacks is ongoing in Ukraine, as the Russians do the only thing they seem capable of, lashing out at Ukraine in general.

Russian cyberterrorists launched a cyberattack on U.S. airports yesterday.

October 13, 2022

Uniting two pariah states in one war, Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel are training Russian troops on the use of Ukrainian drones, inside of territory occupied by the Russians in Ukraine.

All the while, protests are spreading in Iran against its government over its treatment of women, effectively, and the loss of life of women at the hands of Iranian authorities.

October 15, 2022

Russia has suspended additional recalls/levies, having brought 220,000 men into service.  260,000 Russian men have fled the country.  It appears that conscription/recall was one more thing the Russian government was unable to effectively manage.

October 15, cont.

Two volunteer Russian soldiers, from a former part of the Soviet Union, opened up on their fellow trainees today in Russia, killing eleven of them.

Which gives credence to my theory that the Crimea bridge bombing fits into the long history of auxiliary regional warfare.  I.e, I think that will turn out to be the work of Georgians, or Armenians, or Azerbaijan's, rather than Ukrainians.

All of which means Russia is starting to encounter the fruits of its prior repressions in the current attempt to annex and subjugate Ukraine.

October 16, 2022

Ukrainian orchestra conductor Yuri Kerpatenko, Керпатенко Юрій Леонідович, was murdered by Russian soldiers for refusing to perform in an orchestra performance hosted by the Russian in Kherson Oblast.

The Russians are well on their way to making themselves the Nazis of the early 21st Century.  And I do mean the Russians, not Putin.  Just as the crime of Nazi Germany have tainted the Germans ever since, so will the crimes of the Putinist taint Russia, lest it do something to stop them from carrying on.

October 18, 2022

Russia has hit Kyiv with numerous suicide drones, part of an overall missile and drone attack on Ukrainian population centers.

More and more Russia of 2022 actions like Germany of 1939-1945.

Ethnic tensions among Russian recruits resulted in Tajik soldiers killing Russian compatriots in Belogorod.  Their commander had insulted Islam and claimed the invasion of Ukraine a holy war.

This is interesting in that Russia has rapidly reached a state of demoralization within its Army which has surpassed that experienced by the United States during the Vietnam War and which should be a sign that its army may simply come apart.

October 19, 2022

Iran

A Persian edition of the British newspaper The Telegraph ran an article on how to use handguns.  It must be noted that given the UK's position on firearms, that's rather ironic.

Protests are spreading and children are now included in them.  Factions appear to be developing in the government. 

Russo Ukrainian War

It has been confirmed that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are in Crimea as training cadre on Iranian drones, as their own country edges towards a revolution which would leave them as permanent guests of Putin's regime.

The last two days, the Russians have been targeting Ukrainian infrastructure with missile and drone strikes.

The Russians are evacuating Kherson.

October 21, 2022

Conor Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, is apparently just back from the war after having served in the Ukrainian Legion.

By his own account, his time in the war was fairly short, although he reports that he liked being a soldier.

The Russians are withdrawing from Kherson. It is believed that they may attempt to blow up a substantial dam in the region in order to cover their withdrawal.

October 22, 2022

Russia is trying to evacuate civilians from Kherson while also pouring in conscripts, fodder for the cannons.

October 24, 2022

From The Pilar interview with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I:

The Russian-Ukraine War is a conflict largely between Eastern Orthodox Christians. How do you feel about this as the spiritual leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christians?

The ongoing war waged by Russia into the sovereign territory of Ukraine has weighed heavily on our mind and heart in recent months. It is true that it has been characterized as Orthodox fratricide, although the consequences have reached many more people, including Ukrainian Catholics as well as other Christian and religious believers, and the repercussions have surely been felt throughout the world.

What is still more painful to us is the fact that the Patriarchate of Moscow has stooped to the level of submitting to political ambitions of the Russian Federation, even endorsing and seemingly blessing this cruel invasion and unjustifiable bloodshed. We have repeatedly condemned the aggression and violence, just as we have fervently and fraternally appealed to the Patriarch of Moscow that he separate himself from political crimes, even if it means stepping down from his throne.

October 25, 2022

Myanmar

The government launched an airstrike on a celebration by the Kachin Independence Organization in the northern state of Kachin, killing at least 80 individuals.

The air force is equipped principally with Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Russo Ukrainian War

Russian diplomats have been yapping about Ukraine preparing to use a "dirty bomb", which it isn't. The fact that they're doing this, however, is raising a lot of speculation about the purpose of this Kremlin story.  Something is going on.

It's now clear the recent annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia has caused a split in the Kremlin, with some Russian figures reaching out to the west to try to start negotiations.

October 25, cont.

The US has been hitting Al Shabaab targets in Somalia, including one earlier this week.  The one earlier this week was in support of Somali National Army forces.

October 30, 2022

Expanding the drone war, Ukrainian naval drones hit a Russian cruiser yesterday.  Russia called off the grain deal in retaliation.

The drone attack was by a group of drones, showing how naval war is rapidly evolving.  Effectively, such vessels take the place of PT boats, when PT boats were still viable.

General Alexander Lapin has been relieved of his command of the central area Russian forces in Ukraine.

At least where I live, the World Series, being run on Fox, is featuring a television commercial opposing US aid to Ukraine in the current war.

November 2, 2022

Russo Ukrainian War

The Wagner Group is attempting to recruit fromer Afghan National Army refugee commandos who have taken refuge in Afghanistan.  They are resistant to recruitmant, but fear being deported to Afghanistan.

According to the NYT, Soviet commanders recently discussed the topic of the use of nuclear weapons.  This without Putin.

This is probably not cause for undue alarm, but it is cause for alarm.  Americans might wish to recall that this occured in our military in the 50s and 60s, and it was politicians that percluded their use by frustrated commanders.

North Korea

North Korea, the diapered baby of nations, fired 23 missles into the sea this week.

It's hard to know why this isolated Stalinist theme park does these things, other than to get attention.  Whatever it is, it doesn't work.  Indeed, the Communist Clown State risks somebody taking it seriously at which point its ongoing existance, or at least that of its leadership, stands to become iffy.

November 3, 2022

Uniting both of the topics above, North Korea is supplying artillery shells to Russia.

Yesterday it launched an ICBM over Japan.

November 8, 2022

Ukranian President Zelensky expressed an openess to peace talks with Russia, on Ukrainian terms, those being:

One more time: restoration of territorial integrity, respect for the U.N. charter, compensation for all material losses caused by the war, punishment for every war criminal and guarantees that this does not happen again

This is not insignificant, although its likely to be dismissed as being so.  At least the condition of war crimes trials is likely to be bargained away.  This may be an actual bid to open talks, done with Western backing.

Where it would lead is another matter.  Maybe Ukrainian territorial integrity, but combined with a promise not to join NATO.

November 9, 2022

While there are fears it may be a ruse, the Russians appear to be withdrawing from Kherson in advance of a Ukrainian offensive.

Do so is wise in light of their inability to defend it, but also telling.  Kherson was taken early in the current war and Ukraine will soon advance back to the Dneipr.

November 10, 2022

The United States estimates that both Russia and Ukraine has sustained over 100,000 casualties in the current war.

Note, that's casualties, not deaths.

November 11, 2022

The Ukrainians are in Kherson and will very soon have retaken the complete left bank fo the Dnipr.  This is an epic Russian defeat, and the Ukrainians will be in striking distance of Crimea.

Prior Related Threads:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2022. The Russo Ukrainian War Edition, Part Seven

Culpability for murder.

Sunday, September 24, 2012. The end of the World War II Day-By-Day Blog.

The last entry on the World War II Day-By-Day Blog occurred on this day, ten years ago.

Day 1120 September 24, 1942

The blog was excellent, and we've drawn from it as a source here frequently.

Comments on the blog trailed on for some time after that, but have stopped updating.

Something happened. There was no indication at all the blog would be shut down, and none of the comments that were put up were replied to.  The fact that comments were put up for almost two years suggests that somebody continued to monitor it, as spam comments did not appear.

These blogs are put up by people, most of whom do this as labors of love. This blog demonstrated a colossal amount of labor going into it.  The sudden end of the blog likely means the death or severe health crisis of the author.

Some blogs disappear that way.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Can Democracy Survive Social Media?

"A republic, if you can keep it", said Franklin about the new form of American government.  Franklin was an intellectual.  I doubt he could be heard now.

Truly, whenever something is posted on social media, piles of self convinced reply to it.

Political discourse has always had a rough edge, but the least educated, most opinionated, and least intellectually endowed did not always reply to every single political story or advertisement made.  Now, they do, and indeed downright dominate it.

As an example, anything posted in favor of Cheney will receive piles of self convinced assertions that Trump is nearly a saint and everything said against him is an anti-American plot.  This is, frankly, absurd.  

Or, as an example, one post pointing out the fabrications of another, recently received replies that amounted to the schoolyard "nanna nanna doo doo".  That is not an argument, but that's the general nature of the replies on social media.

It's not that some political discourse is like this.  Most is.  Twitter, Facebook, or what have you, pander to the lowest common denominator, not the intellect.

Early on, the political forces of the republic actually catered to the intellect.  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the like, were intellectuals.  People with knee-jerk, ill-informed, opinions didn't get it much past their neighbor's fence. People with informed opinions were better able to distribute them.

They wouldn't get a voice now.

This direction is, to say the least, not encouraging.

I'm surrounded by electronic communications devices. . .

 and I don't like it.

Richmond and Backus Co. office, Detroit, Michigan, 1902.  This is obviously a law office.  A set of CJS's are on a rotary shelf.  On the window sill are a set of corporate seals.  The bookshelves on the left are barrister cases.  The office is sort of a mess, like most real law offices are.  Missing, however, is the dread telephone.

This week I started using an iPad.

This isn't because I love the latest and the greatest in technology,  I don't.  Not at all.  In fact, I tend to be a contrarian on it.

This is partially as I just view tools for their utility.  I don't understand, for example, why people trade in perfectly functioning cars they own for new ones. The old one would have gotten you from point A to point B just as well in lots of instances.

"Well, it's new!"

Yeah, so what?  You spent money on something you didn't need to get a job done, something you already owned did.

M'eh.

But I have a computer in my home.  Two actually, as I have my own laptop that I got for work purposes back during the first part of the pandemic.  I already had a work issued one, and I frankly can't really tell you know exactly why I thought I needed my own, but I did.  It might be because things were really topsy-turvy at the time, and a person with a good workplace laptop risks somebody purloining it for a temporary purpose that become permanent, or in some instances you actually need to in order to run things for trials.  Indeed, I took my own and my issue laptop to a trial in August in Denver and I mostly used my own in my hotel room, not my issue one.  My issue one I took to court each day with me, but I didn't use it much there.

Anyhow, I never saw need for an iPad, even though my daughter has one and loves it.  She uses it for school.

Then, one of my younger confederates at work, upon whom I depend a great deal, bought a surface and started using it as a notepad.

A high-tech notepad.

I was impressed, to say the least.

I'm pretty much afloat in paper all the time, and it's easy to take notes and not recall where they were or memorialize what you need to do from them.  This can address this problem pretty efficiently.

And so now I have one, and I used it for the first time yesterday, the day I got it.

It is an improvement, although it reemphasizes my horrible handwriting.

I'd gone to fountain pens due to my poor handwriting, and they do help. This takes me back to writing too fast, so it's retrograde in that fashion.  But it's an improvement nonetheless.

And once I figure it out, and I will, it'll do a lot more than that.

When I started practicing law, we didn't even have computers.  We got them the first year I practiced, and it wasn't even super clear what we were using them for. They didn't have internet connections, and while the internet existed, it was dial up and all that.

Shortly after that, we did get dial up internet and soon after that, I got a computer myself, with an internet connection.  It was actually my second, as I'd had one without a dial-up before that, although why is really an open question.

Soon after that, the "Blackberry" came in, which served various functions for those who had them.  I never did, but I did have something similar that was passed down to me by a more senior lawyer who had upgraded to something else on the Afghan Warlord Principal.^[1]   I can't really recall what the thing did, other than that it stored contacts.  It wasn't a phone.

Soon after computers came in I started to type out my own work using them.  There was huge resistance to this and I was repeatedly ordered to dictate my work.  I did quite a bit of it, but I ended up abandoning that soon after we had computers.  Indeed, when I dictated I tended to write out, by hand, what I was going to dictate, first.  Anyhow, I was the first in the office to abandon the Dictaphone.  Now, I think, there's one semi retired lawyer left who uses a variant of one.

Dictaphones replaced direct dictation, which had been common before that.  With direct dictation the author dictated to a secretary who could take shorthand notation by hand, and then that person, usually a "she" in later years, transcribed it using a typewriter.  Before that, when secretaries were still "he's", that person usually wrote the document out by hand. People who did that were called "scrivener's" and were hired for their good handwriting.  Even today in the law we use the term "scrivener" as a substitute for author, because it's fun.

For notes, lawyers wrote everything out by hand on long yellow legal pads.  Many of us, myself included, still do.

But those days are ending.

Dictaphones have gone away, for the most part, and nobody is employed as a scrivener any longer.  The era of the true secretary, whose job was taking dictation and doing transcription, is over as well.  Scrivener's as an occupation no longer exist.^[2].    

Where all this leads I can't say, but I really don't like being tied to electronics so much.  I do like being able to publish myself, as in here, but I'm at the point, I think, where I'd rather not have to be on the constant office cutting edge of technology.  Some people love it, even tough, long term I worry it'll be our destruction.  I'm not one of the ones who love it, even though I've been a fairly heavy adopter of it.

On that, however, it's odd how the initial adoption sometimes came by force, and then sometimes obliquely.  My first home computer was really a toy from my prospective.  I probably played Solitaire on it more than do anything else, but it came with games.  My justification for getting it was that it would be a great home word processor and much better than a typewriter, all of which is true.

The internet at home was the same way.  It was a toy.  Now I have to have it due to work.

I resisted smartphones at first, but at some point it was no longer possible not to have one.  How many I have had by now I couldn't say, but it's quite a few.  I've adopted to the text world, and I'm glad that it lets me keep up with my kids in college, sort of.  And I like having, oddly enough, a little pocket camera, which of course it also is, all the time, something that's reflected on these blogs.  And I really like the iTunes feature, oddly enough.  Indeed, I had a little iPod before I had an iPhone that I used for music.  I think that I started listening to podcasts after I had my first iPhone, and I really like them.

But, given it all, while I don't like romanticizing the past, if I could place me and those I love back a century, before all this stuff, I'd do it.

I'd probably be the only one I know, however, who would.

I wonder, if I ever retire, what of this stuff I'd keep?  I don't think I'd keep it all.

Footnotes

1.  "The Afghan Warlord Principal".  Years ago I saw a photograph of a body of men, all armed, in Afghanistan.  They were tribesmen fitted out to fight the Soviets. Some were boys.  The boys carried ancient rifles, and if I recall correctly one had a muzzle-loading rifle.  One man, squatted down dead center, had an AK47, the only one so armed.

He looked like he was 80, if he was a day.

He had the most effective combat weapon not because he was the most effective combatant, but because he was senior to everyone else.  Much technology in any one office setting works the same way.

2.  To my surprise, although I shouldn't have been, it exists as a last name, however.  

Makes sense.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXIV. The Neighborhood News List

I suppose that it's inevitable in the era of social medical that all forms of it devolve to the lowest common denominator.

It's unfortunate, but also oddly illustrative of how people think.

Our city and maybe every city, has a net based site which sends out emails and has a webpage on things of importance and interest to the community.  Indeed, I think it's a national service, which is tailored for each community.

It's supposed to be focused on community news.

You know, such as "saw weird creeper looking through my car on XYZ street last night" or "what's the weird insect that's been mowing my lilacs down . . . "

But of course, sooner or later, you get the the same deluded crap that shows up on all social medial everywhere and, ultimately, pollutes it.

You know, of course, what I mean without even saying it.  The comments by those who seriously believe that everyone thinks exactly what they do on controversial issues.  Perhaps this forum is even more tailor-made for it, as its local.  So you have some poor sot who thinks that everyone in his community must think the same way as he does, as of course he believes that he's the soul of reason.

Some examples.

Riiterhouse

Just recently somebody posted the results of the Ritterhouse jury on the service, apparently believing that everyone must be following the results of a trial in Wisconsin even if they live in Wyoming, and of course it's posted in the "hurrah" type of fashion.

This came about as in "Hey!  Ritterhouse in!" or something like that.

This isn't Wisconsin, and based on what little I've paid attention this, we all ought to be mighty glad about that.  We don't need random opinions, really, on jury verdicts in controversial cases in other states.  It only drags their slop into ours.

Beyond that, in backrooms and places where people can express their true feelings about matters, a lot of Wyomingites have pretty nuanced feelings about the case.  I'm not hearing too many people cheering the kids three shootings, and even he doesn't seem to be doing that now.  

At any rate, that issue has nothing to do with your neighborhood.

And of course, politics

And things being what they are, that means extreme right wing politics.  

Just yesterday somebody with strong right wing populist feelings posted a "remember not to vote for" post about a member of the House.  This person claimed the Representative is "no good for Wyoming".

Pretty quickly, some people rose to his defense, naturally enough. And in doing so they took aim at another Representative who is in the news a lot, and whom they noted is from California.

The first commenter never did say what it was that the Representative he was complaining about did, other than that he said he'd gone to them with the concerns "of a lot of people".

It's pretty clear that the complainer is an extreme right wing populist, but the interesting thing here is the "Wyoming" claim.  I know that the person he's complaining about is a Wyoming native.  The person he's praising, is not.  Indeed, the candidate the writer is complaining of is a third generation Wyomingite and the one he likes really is a fairly recent out of state import.

And this is super common with our state's politic's, actually. The real fire breathing street level right wing populists tend to be imports from other states. Wyoming is a Republican state, but most of the GOP here is pretty middle of the road, at the street level, and not so populist, at least in the towns.  Out in rural areas this tends, however, to be different.

I've noted this in person as well.  I'll meet people from other areas and they'll comment on an issue with their very right wing opinion with the assumption that because I'm a native, my view must be populist on the far right.  Most people from here, however, have a real mix of views and are pretty nuanced.

Which gets back to lists.  Why annoy a neighborhood list with this sort of stuff.

Babble

While I'm on this, I'll note that a really good way to tell if a person, even in print, is an import from outside the region is if they use diction that demonstrates that they've watched too many Western movies.

"While doggone me jibbers, pilgrim, that ole politikking jabberer . . . "

Yeah, you're from New Jersey.

Stray Dogs

I do think the lists serve the purpose of people who have lost pets posting to find them, but there are some people who seem to sprint to their computer every time they see a dog.

More distressingly, there seem to be some people who capture any dog they seem and assume its lost, rather than just on a walkabout. If that dog wasn't a stray before, he is now.

I'd much rather have that, however, than "don't vote for candidate X. . he won't support my petition to ban the liberal commie barista industry, why dagnabbit I ordered a coffee and. . ."

Lex Anteinternet: Kasie Hunt is leaving Morning Joe. . .

Lex Anteinternet: Kasie Hunt is leaving Morning Joe. . .:  which I don't watch. I do watch Meet the Press . She stated she's leaving Joe for her "next big adventure". Please make t...

And going to CNN, as it turns out. 

And it also turns out she's going into streaming services, which would suggest that she'll appear via the Internet, not via television.

If all of this is correct it means that Hunt is gambling and CNN is betting that streaming via the Internet is the future of news, not cable TV.  It's a bold move for hunt.

Email Subscription Notice. Email subscriptions are now on Follow.It

All email subscribers, please be aware that as of today, you'll be getting notices of email updates via Follow.It rather than through FeedBurner, which is how it used to work.

The reason for that is that Google, which owns FeedBurner, is wiping out its email subscription feature.

For some time there's been a new Email Subscription Gadget up, but the old one also was up.  I don't think anyone subscribed via the new one since I had it up, but as of today, you'll have to use it if you want to be updated by email.

I've been using the Follow.It email update personally since I linked it in here and I like it.  About the only difference I've really noticed that may catch you off guard at first is that it also has some news links at the bottom. Well, it would, as its own service and is free to the Blogger.  It has to pay for itself somehow.  Otherwise, it's at least as good, if not better, than FeedBurner was.

We hope you continue to enjoy the blog and don't dislike the new email updates.  When Blogger announced that it was giving FeedBurner the ax, we considered simply giving up blogging as most of our daily visits come from people who subscribe  We looked at moving this to a new blog on a different service, but decided not to do that, weighing in favor of simply giving up the blog instead. Finding this service allows us to continue on.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part 15. Rising posts, Billie Eilish Interests, "Romeo and Juliet", Bill and Melinda, Kardashian statutes, Rest Stops, Not taking a bath, and big cats.

I wonder what it was?

This trailing post series sometimes makes it up to the top post for the past week, but the last one did in less than six hours.  Here it is:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgist Part 14. The Industrial Revolution and Child Care and other musings.

I wonder what shot it up so fast?  The title issue was the Biden economic infrastructure proposal and its items on child care, but way down in the text Billie Eilish being on the cover of British Vogue was discussed.

It had to be one or the other, the two being oddly related in a way.

Eilish commentary

One thing I didn't note in depth is that Eilish apparently made the following comments:

One message she is sending is that there's a lot of "sexual misconduct" in the entertainment industry. This isn't news, but at least she's saying something.  Her comment to British Vogue basically read as an entitlement of sexual immorality, which would actually be a species of real progress coming from that quarter.  Perhaps its not entirely surprising, however, given that her generation has pretty much had it with things Boomer, of which the Sexual Revolution is part.

She noted it that this problem include the abuse of boys.  Something rarely noted.

"Romeo and Juliet"

A post that predictably shot right up was the recent one on the 2022 Wyoming Congressional election.  In that series I track what's going on, but a post regarding what occurred in Florida in 1983 is what shot it to the top, where it remains.

People who are interested in the story can read it there, but what it entails is far right, pro Trump, anti Cheney, very loud Laramie County state Senator Anthony Bouchard having been in a sexual relationship with a 14 year old when he was an 18 year old.  As the story involves sex, and a scandal, and  sex scandal, and tragedy, it predicable went right to the top.

There are a lot of peculiar angles to this, to say the least.  Anyhow, I got around to finally watching the video that Bouchard released on this and I have to say that I'm singularly unimpressed.  Indeed, the opposite is true.  

For starters, Bouchard captions the video as "taking on" the "fake news media". There's nothing fake about this story, however.  He did exactly what he's accused of.  He doesn't really even come out acknowledging that there's something wrong about an 18 year old screwing a 14 year old, at least not in the four minutes of it I watched.  I didn't watch the rest.  He does give himself, and his late wife, credit for not aborting the baby, and I'd give them credit for that too, however.

Anyhow, somehow we've gone from a situation in which people generally acknowledge their faults fairly seriously, even if only when caught, to sort of bypassing them and blaming them on the media. The media isn't prefect and I think its biased, but Bouchard, in getting ahead of this story, didn't really get ahead of it.

Quite a few people are making comparison to the news stories about Matt Gaetz who came out with the absurd line that he always treated his trysts well.  I don't know if the allegations about him and minors are true, but it used to be the case that, as the conservative party, the Republicans stood for morality.  Clearly that's a mixed bag now, which I suppose is proof we've sunk so low in the Sexual Revolution that there isn't any.

Or maybe it tells us something about current populist politics.

Screen Free Week

This just happened recently.

I had to learn about it from a cartoon, which I had to learn on line, as my local newspaper doesn't publish a Monday print edition, only an electronic one.

Of course, I didn't observe it, but then I really couldn't.  So much of what I do is on line anymore, even though I really wish it wasn't.

Bill and Melinda Gates

They announced their divorce on Twitter.

I don't know anything about them, but it's a real surprise.  She's a Catholic.  He's not, I believe, but had supported her and participated in their parish.

No details were provided at first, and of course we aren't entitled to any.  It's disappointing no matter what you view on them is really.  Indeed, given their vast wealth and respective ages, I thought at first that it really doesn't make any sense at all. If they weren't getting along, was my thought, they probably should just have separated.

Well it turns out that Gates too has a bit of a roving eye.  Sheesh.

Statuesque

The statuesque Kim Kardashian, the most famous member of the most famous Armenian American family, famous for being famous, is in a bit of hot water for importing a Roman statute.

It may be just me, but I think there's something deep inside the half Armenian members of this family that's harkening them back to the old country and old ways of life.

False Positive

Demographers are noting that the US birth rate is below replacement level, a good thing, but the US is hardly at the point where its population is falling, which would also be a good thing, due to a massive unsustainable immigration rate.

Reporting on this topic is always bizarre.  There's only so much room before a population negatively impacts the environment and itself.  And the concept of a "demographic winter" in which there aren't enough youngsters to support a benighted retired population is completely false, being based on a completely static technological situation which in reality has never existed.  Indeed, it's pretty clear that our technology has advanced to the point its putting people out of work.

Riding the elephant to death

Donald Trump has launched a website entitled From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.

Nobody seems to be paying that much attention to it, however.  Frankly, the fact that it doesn't burst out onto Twitter, where he's banned, means you have to take the effort to subscribe to it, which only the really convinced are going to to.

Belgium Advances

A Belgian farmer found a border marker between his country and France annoying so he moved it.

He's been asked to move it back.

Bathing less often

The New York Times reports that people bathed less during the Coronavirus lockdowns and quite a few of them do not plan to return to more frequent bathing.

Folks actually probably don't need to bathe as often as they do, which has been known for a long time.  But we've already crossed the bar on slovenliness in the US so this probably isn't a good thing.

The Eyes Of Texas

At some point, people are getting upset as its fun to have righteous anger over something, as long as it isn't something that doesn't really matter. The Eyes of Texas flap is just one such example.

Tensions boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas", where students are refusing to work and a man with a gun crashed a virtual event

A student group was hosting an event with a UT-Austin professor about the song when a man entered the online Zoom call with his face covered, holding what appeared to be a large gun.

Meanwhile, real problems go unaddressed. . . 

Temporary Relief

Reopening of the Rest Stops

 

Governor Gordon Authorizes Funding to Temporarily Reopen 9 Rest Areas for the Summer Travel Season

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has directed the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) and Wyoming Office of Tourism (WOT) to partner to temporarily reopen and operate nine previously closed rest areas for at least the duration of the 2021 tourist season.

“With the summer season just around the corner, I’m glad we will be able to reopen these facilities to travelers,” Governor Gordon said. “We are glad to have this chance to find a temporary solution.”

WYDOT and WOT along with the Governor's office will work together to secure a temporary federal funding source to allow the nine rest areas throughout the state to reopen. 

"WYDOT is extremely grateful to Governor Gordon and Director Shober for identifying new federal funds to temporarily reopen our rest areas for the tourist season," said WYDOT Director K. Luke Reiner. 

Officials closed the rest areas in June 2020 as a cost-savings measure due to budgetary shortfalls. 

 The nine rest areas include:

• Lusk on US 18
• Guernsey on US 26
• Greybull on US 16
• Moorcroft on I-90
• Star Valley on US 89
• Sundance on I-25
• Upton on US 16
• Orin Jct on I-25
• Chugwater on I-25

“Each of these nine rest areas are a valuable tourism tool, said Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. “Certainly, a clean facility is important to the visitor experience, but it is also a powerful marketing platform to distribute travel guides and other trip-planning resources. As travelers are stretching their legs, they are also gathering information on local events, attractions, restaurants, campgrounds and lodging, which all can lead to extended stays and increase visitor spending.”

The rest areas should reopen ahead of Memorial Day weekend.

-END-

Oh think goodness.

"It takes a big cat to eat a ton of tuna"

So went an old answer to the question "what do you know".  It doesn't seem to be around any more, but there was news about a really big cat.

Newly Identified Species of Saber-Toothed Cat Was So Big It Hunted Rhinos in America

On big cats, a tiger being kept by a felon escaped its house in Houston.  The large cat was captured and is safe, but this is the second tiger in Houston story in recent years.

What the heck?  Is Petco just out of cats in Texas?

Virtue Signaling 

NBC has cancelled broadcasting of the Golden Globes for lack of diversity.

Nobody really pays any attention to these awards anymore, but this entire flap is really virtue signaling in the extreme. An industry which closed a blind eye to sexual misconduct for years is now missed at the Hollywood foreign press, which gives the Golden Globes.  M'eh.

What might be noted, in terms of diversity, is that India has the largest film industry in the world, not the US.  And our neighbor to the south, Mexico, has had an excellent and vibrant film industry for decades.

I'm sure the Screen Actors Guild will be pointing all this out really soon, of course, even if that diminishes its perceived importance.

Bouncing

Ocasio-Cortez on Taylor Greene: 'These are the kinds of people that I threw out of bars all the time'

Greene ought to be bounced from Congress, but that's not going to happen.

I'll be clear that she's not the only detestable Congressman by any means, and neither party has a lock hold on detestable political figures.  But its pretty clear at this point that Greene is a type of live action troll.  Like Internet trolls, she runs around saying stupid stuff and doing stupid things as it gets her attention.

Don't feed the trolls.

Speaking of stupidity, here's another Greene headline:

Marjorie Taylor Green compares mask mandate to the holocaust.

Congress has the ability to refuse to seat somebody, or to boot them out if they're really over the top. Greene should be sent packing.

Yikes

Freshly Made Plutonium From Outer Space Found On Ocean Floor

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part 6. Cruz goes to Mexico and I wonder why I should care, Electrical infrastructure, Not renaming National Monuments, McConnell v. Trump, Idle princes, Slammin' Spammy

Cruz vacation plans and why should I care?

News reports were having it that Senator Ted Cruz went to Mexico on vacation during the Texas cold snap.

So what?

Cruz returned, indicating at the time that he had gone down only to facilitate the trip for his daughters, but the vigilant press reported that in fact he'd planned to stay originally and that this trip was pre booked prior to the emergency brought about by the weather.

Let me be frank.  I don't like Ted Cruz as a politician.  When he ran in 2016 he came through this state asserting that he wanted to transfer the Federal lands to the state, which would be a disaster for Wyoming and which indicates that he was taking advice from somebody on the far right wing edge of the GOP.  I figure that you don't get bad advice like that, which the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites oppose, unless that's the company you keep.  That view was cemented by his self serving challenge of the election results on January 6 and his prior bizarre offer to argue Trump's case in front of the United States Supreme Court as if he's some sort of legendary jurist.  

But he's entitled to a vacation as much as anyone else.

Heck, for that matter, under the conditions Texas has been in the past week, why wouldn't somebody want to go to Cancun?

Cruz really can't do anything about the power emergency in Texas.  Texas can, but it can't overnight.  Part of what Texas could do is to cease the 1930s vintage system in which Texas is its own power grid.  There are not doubt technical things beyond that, but that would be a good start.  But Ted Cruz can't do that.

Ted Cruz did go to President Biden, as did the Governor of Texas, and ask for the Lone Star State, whose AG sued over the Biden election just a few weeks ago, to certify Texas as a disaster area, which Biden did. That's about all he could do.  And he did that. Sitting around freezing in Texas isn't going to accomplish a lot more, no matter what critics like Robert Reich think.

What this probably confirms is that Cruz pushed his political future off the rails back in January.  That this was going to obviously occur isn't news, but its' starting already, just as the 2022 election is.  In a world in which Mitch McConnell is struggling to regain control over the party and people like Cruz were attempting to co-opt it, just like a roll of the dice in an Avalon Hill game, nobody can game for the weather.

But I don't want to read about where Ted Cruz goes on vacation for the next four years, and frankly, why wouldn't he have gone to Cancun? Get a grip.

Um. . . he's a Republican

Donald Trump Jr. criticized the "Democratic Governor of Texas" over that state's response to the weather emergency.

Problem is, he's a Republican.

This is similar, we'd note, to Ted Cruz last year criticizing the "green" power infrastructure of California.  Yes, that Governor, who is in major political trouble right now, is a Democrat, but you ought not to throw rocks at glass houses. . . 

At least Cruz, when this was point out, admitted he had no response to it.

The Zeitgeist is not forgiving.

Infrastructure

It might be worth noting, when this rubble all falls to the ground post cold snap, that the US has an infrastructure problem.  In the 2016 election everyone promised to fix it.  Clearly, it hasn't been fixed.

Old stuff needs to be repaired.  For a nation where people seem to be buying new stuff as its new constantly, that fact seems to escape us.  Americans buy new houses not because they really need a new one, but because its new.  People replace appliances as there are new ones.  Lots of modern stuff flatly can't be fixed anymore as nobody fixed it anyway so its not built to be fixed.  Had a television repaired recently?  Of course you haven't.

So the concept of maintenance seems to have completely escaped us.

For a nation that likes new so much, the fact that we aren't building new high tech infrastructure or even really looking at it is bizarre.  Yes, we're bringing new power generation technologies on line, and we're replacing old ones, whether people like it or not, but we haven't really rethought it.

In at least my view, power grids are like computers.  Back in the day, places that had computers, which were few, had giant banks of them. Then the towers came. Then the laptops.  There's now more computer muscle power in your phone than there was on board any of the Apollo craft.

What this may mean is that they day has arrived for smaller, not larger, electric power grids, but ones that are also interconnected, like the Internet.  

No Changing The Name

Devil's Tower, for at least the time being.

Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would preclude the government from changing the name of Devil's Tower National Monument.  Senator Barrasso has signed up for it.

Lummis was last in the news largescale when she followed Ted Cruz into voting against the Pennsylvania vote on the very day of the January 6 insurrection. She's been hailed by Trump supporters locally just as Cheney has seemingly been condemned, although letters to the paper suggest that at least the rank and file who are willing to pick up a pen support Cheney fairly overwhelmingly.  This is going to be an issue in the 2022 election for Cheney, and given the chatter background, she's in good shape.

Lummis isn't as far as having any influence on anything right now.  Paybacks, as the old phrase goes, are a bitch, and as a freshman Senator in the first place she has no pull on anything without somebody giving her some. She's not on the right side of Mitch McConnell right now, as he is clearly a Trump enemy and she's welded to Trump given her tactical decision to abandon her earlier expressed disdain for him and now praise him.  We don't know what's going on in the background, but chances are strong she's on the "we'll get back to you on that" list in regards to the GOP in the Senate right now, and on the "Cynthia who from where?" list as far as the Democrats are concerned.

The press has openly speculated about "what now" in terms of Wyoming's political influence in the Senate. The answer is pretty obviously none whatsoever.  This bill is extremely unlikely to go anywhere for that reason right now, but it will serve to keep her name in the press on an issue where most Wyomingites will agree with her.

As for the name, there's real confusion on how it came about.  It seems to have first been suggested by the Army following Custer's survey of the Black Hills, which it is located in.  It seems that the translation given may have been incorrect, however, as various native groups do not seem to have called it that. The Lakota called it Bear Lodge, and in 2014 they petitioned that the batholith and nearby community be renamed that. The Cheyenne also used a name associating the feature with bears.  Other native names associated it with eagles and noted its resemblance to a buffalo horn.

There is precedence for returning such topographic features to their native names, with Mount McKinley being the prime example.  Nobody calls the tallest mountain in North America that any more, and everyone knows it now by Denali, its original and restored native name.  As a Wyoming native, I don't think I'd object to the feature being restored to a native name, as its pretty clear that the present name was due to a translation error in the first place.  I.e., the original intent was to translate, into English, the native name, but the translator got it wrong.

No matter, this is one of those issues that's tailor made to create a flap.  Lots of people are going to get their backs arched up on it, and a lot of those people will be people who live here now, but actually aren't from here originally had have low connection with the state and its geographic and topological features.

Detestation

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, President Trump, and Vice President Pence.  Not a single one of these guys, other than Trump, likes Trump anymore, and probably only Pence ever did.

Mitch McConnell reportedly detests Donald Trump and always has.

Politics is full of marriages of convenience.  While it may not be a really good example, Admiral Canaris was reportedly plotting against the Nazis the entire time he was very ably serving them, for example.  Stalin and Bukharin had been buddies, but for a lot of the latter's period before his fall, he was really a dedicated opponent, even though from the outside world you'd never have known it.  Eisenhower was a very able assistant to MacArthur when MacArthur was chief of staff, but they really didn't like each other.

McConnell is a master tactician, and he put up with Trump as he could use him to advance the causes he really cared about.  He used Trump, and Trump needed him. The question is where this all is at now.  McConnell is trying to put things back in order in the GOP, which would restore a conservative alliance between the various spectrums of conservatism.  Trump doesn't seem interested in a conservative GOP without Trump as the central figure in it.

Betting against McConnell would be a mistake.

Prince Harry chooses not to resume royal duties

I just wish he'd go home.

I'm not super keen on the Royal Family anyhow, although in recent years the Queen has risen considerably in my scale of approval.  Prince Harry, when he was still somewhat of a guy, was okay, but since he married Meghan Markle, the present Duchess of Sussex, he's become a real wimp. 

I may be wrong, but I thought that Meghan had to renounce her American citizenship when she entered the Royal family. So why are they here?  They aren't citizens and they hold not necessary skills that the U.S. can't fill on its own.

This is one more example of how U.S. immigration laws are really whacked.  There are probably engineers in Syria who aren't working as they're on the wrong side of the regime we could really use, and instead of them being here, we're housing a soy boy prince and his whiney bride.

Stupid Spam

"Kamala's Backdoor".  

I started getting that one almost as soon as the new administration came in.

I really wonder who bites on all of this stuff.  For a long time there was one I'd get almost daily about a secret that President Trump was revealing even though the Pope wanted him to keep it a secret. Really?  

By the way, Hormel sponsored a B-25 during World War Two that was named "Slammin' Spammy".  It's nose art featured a M1917 helmet wearing pig throwing a bomb.  Hormel is, of course, the processor of the real SPAM, the canned chopped ham.

Monday at the Bar: Kitten Zoom Filter Mishap

Too Clever By Half: Restoring the 'Quick Edit' Tools, Version 2.0

Too Clever By Half: Restoring the 'Quick Edit' Tools, Version 2.0: The removal of the quick-edit tools has made Blogger harder to use . Here's how to get them back, at least for now.

The dangers of absent minded "liking".

So, I have this friend that's a big fan of the Adams Family and uses one of the characters names as an email handle.

And I have an Instagram account.

Instagram sends you recommendations when people follow you. Follow you back.  

I rarely post on Instagram, but some folks follow me for some reason.

Most of those people I know, of course.  So its photos of their travels, family, kids, etc.  

And some of them are outdoor themed.  I have pages I've liked that are outdoor photos, hunting photos, gun dogs, and the like.

So when I got a recommend, with the same or a really close email handle to my friend, I just absent mindedly hit a "like" and forgot about it.

I was a little surprised, as my friend isn't very active on social medial. Hardly active at all.  And I sort of associate Instagram with people who like to take photographs, which I also don't associate with this friend. But, none the less. . .

Well, several days went by.

Instagram apparently recommends things you've liked to your friends, which includes my wife, who sent me a text later about "you might want to unlike (or whatever the word is) this page".

Well, sure enough.

The page I'd like, and hadn't looked into or vetted in any fashion, was run by somebody who has a distinct interest, maybe a exclusive interest, in boobs.

Now, I'm still not entirely certain it isn't my friend and in some ways it makes some sense.  Years ago I had to tell this fellow, who is otherwise an extremely nice person, hey, don't email me boob photos.  He didn't do this often, but he did occasionally, and always off of a work computer.  They were of the joking meme type, as in "Police Bust", which would be a topless model in some sort of police uniform.  Hah, hah . . . whatever.

But the link my wife sent me was more of the simple big boob type and that would really surprise me.

So, lesson here.  

Don't "like" absent mindedly.  At least check what you like, if you are going to like anything, least you find that your recommending something that you don't recommend.

Technology is truly ruining everything.

Hmmm. . ..mysterious general Google failure this morning. . .

I wonder what that was about.

And I regret "refreshing" my browser thinking it was just me. . . 

Oh well.

But most of all, I regret that it bothered me. . . 

Down to five days

The state's largest newspaper that is.

A lot of papers of a century ago published on a five day schedule, often omitting Sunday and Monday.  But that was at a time when there were no statewide papers, there were two local papers, and the town's population was less than 1/3d of its present number.

It was also, however, a time in which there were no other sources of news.

Now there are, and that's a big problem for print.

The paper did announced that its on line edition will continue to be published seven days a week reflecting, it claims, a shift in reader preference.

It will amplify that preference.  Readers who still subscribe to the paper now will have to subscribe to the online variant if they want news seven days a week, which actually print subscribers can already do, as it includes the online paper.  But you can also subscribe only to the online paper, which many who were teetering on the edge of doing that for a variety of reasons, including simply the costs of the paper, will do. And that will include me.

Repeated Annoying Spam. No, that's not amazing.

Wow!  this is Amazing!  Do you know your hidden name meaning?  Scratch here to find your hidden name meaning.

I've been getting this spam message on one of our companion blgs, and occasionally on others, daily. Sometimes multiple times per day.  It's always caught by our system, which requires moderator approval to post

So does someone think hitting a blog half a dozen times per day with this dumb message is going to come across as anything but spam? 

Truck Forums and the Lack of Cogent Comment

Humvee military vehicle.  They're diesels.

One of the pages on this site is the Dodge 3500 Project, about the slow motion of working on my 2007 Dodge 3500.  As people stopping in at that post will be able to see, the discussion there is the work that's slowly taking place on that truck, which is a mere thirteen years old the way I view it.  It has about 176,000 miles on it, as also noted, which doesn't seem that much to me in terms of a modern diesel vehicle.

Anyhow, one of the things I've tried to do as the project has advanced, slightly, is to learn the technical details on various things about the truck.  As I have one really old truck I had grown accustom to the really good Dodge Power Wagon Forum.  Otherwise I'm mostly familiar with the really good forum of The Society of The Military Horse.  From that I slowly picked up the idea somewhere that all forums must be like that, i.e., populated by really knowledgeable folks.

Not so much.

Indeed, my efforts to learn some technical details from forums on modern Dodge trucks was a complete failure.  Questions about such topics as the differential type (open, as it turns out) on my truck went completely unanswered.  Its become pretty clear that fishing in those waters is fishing in a pretty shallow pool.  That's probably, quite frankly, the way most forums are.  I just didn't realize it.

Anyhow, in looking up one recent item I saw a comment along the lines of "of course, diesels aren't real off road trucks".

Eh?

Every military in the world uses diesels for their vehicles, and they are very off roady.  I have no idea what the person who stated that thought was the case, but the comment is stupid.

Of course, what he may have meant is that modern "off road" 4x4 pickups aren't diesels.  But frankly, I don't get those anyhow . They're one of the odd developments in trucks that are hard to grasp in general.

Dodge 4x4 pickup of early World War Two. They were all "off road" back then.

When I was a kid, there were pickup trucks.  Most were 2x4 and some were 4x4.  Most of the 4x4s were owned by ranchers or companies that had back country work on a regular basis, but some were owned by outdoorsmen.  The belief that 4x4s required a lot more maintenance than 2x4s kept most outdoorsmen, however, from buying them.  As time went on, however, that changed and more and more outdoorsmen bought 4x4s.  At some point in the late 80s or early 90s it seemed that every pickup in this region became a 4x4.  Today, I'm surprised when I see a 2x4 truck.

Anyhow, there was no distinction at all between work trucks and trucks you used to go hunting, fishing or camping, etc., except at some point Chevrolet, at least by the 1960s, marked 2x4 trucks as camper specials.  None the less, any truck a person had was useful for any purpose a person could put a truck to, whatever that was, within its weight classification.  By the 90s at least Chrysler had introduced the "Sport" truck which seemed to mean a 1/2 ton with nicer than normal features.  But it was still a truck.

Now things have indeed changed and at least Dodge and Ford both market 4x4s that are specifically "off road".  It's weird.  Any 4x4 should be off road.  Otherwise, what's the point?

Of course they're marketed as sort of super off road.  I don't know that much about the Ford offering the Ford Raptor, but it's a 1/2 ton truck with a high horsepower engine and special off road features.  The Chrysler offering is the Dodge Power Wagon.

The current Dodge Power Wagon takes its name from the old Power Wagon which was introduced after World War Two and made all the way into the 1970s.  It was a really heavy duty truck and there was no doubt that it was intended for off road use.  But the intended use was off road working use.  People didn't buy the 6 cyl version to go hunting, fishing or camping. They were feeding cattle and putting up power lines.  They were really slow too. The later 8 cyc versions had wider use and were useful for anything that other 4x4s were,, but they were really heavy duty trucks.  Dodge is borrowing from that old cache for the name.

That truck is a short box, automatic transmission, 3/4 ton. Why a short box?

Indeed, why a short box on anything?  If you can't put a sheet of plywood in a truck, it's use is impaired.

Anyhow, both of those offerings  have special off road features and at least the Dodge has locking differentials.  I wish my 07 had them and that's part of what I need to do.  The interesting thing, however, is the development of these specialized, and expensive, 4x4 pickups designed to do what any old 4x4 was expected to do.

In the Internet Age, Maybe Speed Has Made The News Too Stupid To Trust

We have evidence of that twice this week. 

And this probably tells us more about how we're thinking in general.

The first such instance was when Buzz Feed reported that investigation had revealed that President Trump told his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie. 

The news regarding the Trump investigation and those surrounding Trump has been such a blizzard of stuff recently that this frankly sounded credible. But the fact, quite frankly, that Buzz Feed was the revealing source made it so that we should have all held back our judgment a bit.  As it was, the Mueller investigation denied that story about day later. That investigation doesn't seem to leak, so the denial was pretty convincing.

And then there was the entire Covington Catholic High School thing in which everyone rushed in, based on a Twitter item, to condemn the students, the condemnation made all the more enjoyable as it gave bashers the chance to use the term "Catholic" again and again.

Well, turns out that story was pretty much off the mark as well and it was more the case that they were being harassed and not the other way around.

All of this suggest that minor fact is now morphed into sensationalized baloney so fast now that we're loosing the ability to really report serious news.  This has been a problem in general ever since television became the primary means of reporting the news, but now its become absolutely chronic in the age of the Twitter snippet.

Moreover, as the second story now suggests, we're now so ready to be offended in support of our popular cause de jour that we've really reached the level of the absurd.

All of which is distressing.  A nation that can't even report serious news seriously is in serious trouble.

Perhaps this offers a bit of hope actually, although I doubt it.  One of my highly let wing friends who normally wouldn't have any problem participating in a bashing, particularly if bashing Catholics was in the offering, took to the net and complained of the story having "legs" and being meritless.  Sort of confronted by her own politics, I noted that she took to defriending somebody due to being so confronted.  The point is that if those who normally feel free to take extreme positions based on little information are now complaining about it, on the right and the left, maybe they'll all stop doing it.

But probably not.

Who is J. P. Monfort and why is he constantly spamming me?

Enough already, J. P., who ever you are.

Musing on the Century Link Net Outage

One of the things a net outage, or at least a long one, serves to do is to remind you how much you’ve become dependent upon the Internet.

At the time I’m writing this (on Word) Century Link has being doing something (who knows what, and they’re not saying) for over 24 hours.  Obviously the Louisiana based company has a major Internet disaster going on, but it feels that it makes its customers happy if it doesn’t tell them squat.

Good thinking, Century Link.

This may be the first lesson here.  In terms of customer support, not letting a customer know what is going on is not the proper course to take.  Most people are tolerant of mistakes, errors, and breakdowns.  Not everyone is, but most people are.  Letting them know what is going on is a good idea. 

When I called Century Link to find out what the deal was, I got no help at all.  Indeed, there was an element of absurdity to the entire experience as the help person with the Indian accent at first simply pretended that it must be my machine until finally admitting it was a national outage (international actually) and that he had no idea when things were going to be fixed, and among the questions he'd asked the "technician", that wasn't one of them.

Be that as it may, it also means that I’m frustrated by something which, most of the time, is just a toy for me.

Or maybe it isn't.

I wake up really early most days.  Often around 4:00 A.M. but never later than 5:00 A.M. That’s when I type these blog entries out.  I’m an extremely fast typist and it really doesn’t take me long to do them, so that’s what I do after I let the dog out and fix myself coffee, and before the Tribune appears at my door. 

So  not having the net disrupts my routine.

But it wasn’t always my routine.

At one time, when papers arrived early, my routine was to thoroughly read them over coffee and then get ready fro my day.  I’d often also read a book, after I was married, as I didn’t want to wake up my spouse too early (which remains one of the reasons that I mess around on the net early in the morning).  I wouldn’t’ have written as there would have been no audience for most of what I write, even though I’m my own primary audience and I know that.  I’ve never kept a “journal” or diary, as a habit, although I can sure see why people do.

After I was married I often turned on the television with very low sound and watched whatever was on really early, such as the farm report, or perhaps the very early news.  Occasionally a movie if a good one was on really early.

Now I’m acclimated to this.

Good thing?

Well, maybe not bad.  It’s probably better than watching television.  And I do like to write.  But it has its downsides as well.