Yet another lucky find at the local thrift.
A good book for aspiring writers to read, as we get to see Cadfael, a beloved character, develop. We get to see Brother Jerome, fully developed in his righteous smarm. Peters used the stories in this book - in my opinion - to develop Cadfael as a character, bringing in other characters after Cadfael was fully formed. So very instructional.
And the stories are great, though the denouement of the third was a bit abrupt.
Mike Simpson, a word:
Got one of your robocalls tonight announcing RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW you're doing a telephone town hall and that I should stay on the line to be connected to participate.
This kind of call is a fancy way to say "Hey, I *tried* to meet with my constituents, but, yanno, they didn't stay on the line to participate, so it's on them."
No, sir, it's on you.
You caught me at an inconvenient time. I was just heading into a Scout meeting and could not attend your telephone town hall, as much as I might want to do that.
If you're sincere in wanting to meet with your constituents - and of that I have my doubts - you'd schedule your telephone town halls enough in advance that your constituents could plan for them, not have to drop everything they're doing RIGHT NOW in the hopes of having the blessed opportunity of maybe possibly asking you a question as long as it's not too inconvenient to answer.
Representative Russ Fulcher schedules his telephone town halls and gives his constituents ample notice of them. You should learn from that example.
Do better, congressman. Do better.
NOTE: I sent him this in Facebook Messenger, and posted it on my wall. Will update if I get any response. Which I also doubt will happen.
Got this text last night.
I seriously hope my last missive was delivered, too, but I doubt it.
Why not respond to an anonymous - well, it's from "Sarah," so I guess it's not *totally* anonymous - text?
Because who are these people? Why do they want me, L.H. Puttgrass, Pundit for the People, to respond? Will they ask a bunch of questions and weed out any answers that don't fit with the narrative they're pushing? I don't know. But likely.
I'm sure they think telling us in advance who they are might spoil the answers they get, so that's why they're mum.
So they get nothing from me. There's so much dishonesty out there, and I'm a paranoid and suspicious bastard, so no thank you.
~Ron Ziegler
Why is our president such a maroon?
I'm trying, book, but when you tell me characters are sitting around outside smoking and talking in one sentence and then in another not too far distant tell me there's enough rain and lightning there to menace the airplanes they're watching, I have a hard time paying attention to the story.
We had wind gusts of 75 mph on Thursday, and Liam and I had to go out to the carport that night to batten down the hatches.
This map is showing a gust of 58 mph for today, which I doubt was the biggest wind we had today.
The mess damaged our fence, breaking one of the fence upright and snapping an old post I kept from the old fence but clearly should have replaced. So now I get to do that this summer.
Stumbled across this on the Facebooks this morning:
Sure, sure. The Idaho Potato Museum does exist. Its is indeed in Blackfoot.
However . . .
Most of what's in this photo is fake.
First of all, I don't believe this actual intersection exists, at least not in a location that would have this serious amount of directional signage on it.
Then there's the signage . . .
Blackfoot doesn't have a directional arrow.
US Highway 39 is in the east, specifically Alabama-Tennessee-Kentucky.
Nowhere in the national or state highway code are there red signs indicating states on highways.
Oh, and while there is a Highway 39 in the area, it's a state highway with a very distinct shield:
So this is clearly fake, for clicks. And that's annoying. Low-stakes annoying, yes, but annoying nonetheless. If people accept this kind of low-stakes fakery, how much fakery are we willing to accept?
This kind of fakery?
This one's a little better, but still obviously fakes. The incorrect shield for the state highway really stands out, as does the fake "TOURISM" sign and the wonderfully inconsistent, I guess that's supposed to indicate something about I-15 there? I'm not sure.
The real signage, for those interested:
They didn't steal his photo, but they did steal his text.
These kinds of things aren't hard to verify. But why verify, I can hear you screaming. The museum is real. Blackfoot exists. This is low-stakes.
Yes, it is low stakes. But they ratchet things up, you know. Accept l0w-stakes fakery and pretty soon you're swallowing something fake that's got a lot more import to it.
So beware.
This led, of course, to large language models, the root of today's artificial intelligence, and the booby traps therein.
So even if a signal is detected that passes the test of language vs. noise, it could still be noise.
Don't care. Still gotta poop, man.
A Facebook friend made a dangerous wish:
