I've only got random stuff for you now, but it is all good stuff. Well, not really all good, but it is most definitively all stuff.
First, we have Chris Mooney interviewing Rebecca Watson in a Point of Inquiry Podcast. Give it a listen.
I'm happy to be one of the men who supports Rebecca. Those of you who are mad at me for that please continue to comment here, because Imma write a book about WTF is going on in your heads. Along the lines of a Stephen King novel, I think.
On a more mundane and immediate note, we just received word of a four year old girl drowned in Clearwater Park. Nobody I know or anything but it reminds me, now that this is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, to remind you to be safe about water! Did you know that the typical drowning person drowns silently? Did you know that the fast majority of kinds who drown do so in sight of adults who are supposedly supervising them, but who never saw it happen? Obviously someone is doing something wrong. Don't do that.
We also have an interesting phenomenon going on in the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities (but mainly Minneapolis?) and Minnesota is on the top of the list for all sorts of good things: Bike use, theater attendance, adopting people, volunteerism, and bad-ass hot dish. But we are also on the top of the list for NOT HAVING ANY REAL PUBLIC TRANSIT. We have an OK bus system, but until recently not a singe inch of rail transit! Not one!
But that was partly (and I emphasize partly) over the last few years with the opening of two rail systems: The Hiawatha Line (from downtown Minneapolis to the Airport and the Mall of America) and the North Star Line (from my house and points north to Downtown Minneapolis).
And that's nice, but one always worries about new transit projects. All it takes is one study showing that it was underutilized or something for all the anti-good bunny-crushing yahoo to come down on public transit and stuff.
And something did happen here just now, but not that. What happened was a bad thing but with a good message. A train (carrying mainly corn) was going over a bridge over Rice Creek (a former segment of the late Pleistocene Mississippi River) and the bridge, under heavy stress from some mondo rainstorms we've been having, collapsed.
That was the track the North Star rail (mine) runs on. So, when Amanda went to work yesterday via car, she got stuck in the worst traffic jam she'd ever seen, and this is with the State Workers off the highway. And it has been discussed in the news. Apparently, enough people were using the North Star Light Rail Line to matter! Yay public transit! I just hope they fix that bridge soon.
And, I am thankful that it did not collapse under the commuter train.....
They may need a crane to fix that bridge. Oh, and speaking of cranes, Why Not Allow Crane Hunting? Indeed.
OK, next item: I have this question for you: What's the diffrence between "what you said was racist" and "what you said could have been interepated as possilby sounding racist to someone who doesn't know you in all due respect." In my experience either one gets you "I'M NOT RACIST YOU A-HOE!!!11!!" And they are structurally the same thing. They are not "You are a racist swine, a-hole!!!11!!"
Jason Thibeault has been slogging it out with some commenters elsewhere on this very blog about the meaning of "Ad hominem" and was thus inspired to write a blog post about this in which he provides this video which I hereby rob:
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
First, we have Chris Mooney interviewing Rebecca Watson in a Point of Inquiry Podcast. Give it a listen.
I'm happy to be one of the men who supports Rebecca. Those of you who are mad at me for that please continue to comment here, because Imma write a book about WTF is going on in your heads. Along the lines of a Stephen King novel, I think.
On a more mundane and immediate note, we just received word of a four year old girl drowned in Clearwater Park. Nobody I know or anything but it reminds me, now that this is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, to remind you to be safe about water! Did you know that the typical drowning person drowns silently? Did you know that the fast majority of kinds who drown do so in sight of adults who are supposedly supervising them, but who never saw it happen? Obviously someone is doing something wrong. Don't do that.
We also have an interesting phenomenon going on in the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities (but mainly Minneapolis?) and Minnesota is on the top of the list for all sorts of good things: Bike use, theater attendance, adopting people, volunteerism, and bad-ass hot dish. But we are also on the top of the list for NOT HAVING ANY REAL PUBLIC TRANSIT. We have an OK bus system, but until recently not a singe inch of rail transit! Not one!
But that was partly (and I emphasize partly) over the last few years with the opening of two rail systems: The Hiawatha Line (from downtown Minneapolis to the Airport and the Mall of America) and the North Star Line (from my house and points north to Downtown Minneapolis).
And that's nice, but one always worries about new transit projects. All it takes is one study showing that it was underutilized or something for all the anti-good bunny-crushing yahoo to come down on public transit and stuff.
And something did happen here just now, but not that. What happened was a bad thing but with a good message. A train (carrying mainly corn) was going over a bridge over Rice Creek (a former segment of the late Pleistocene Mississippi River) and the bridge, under heavy stress from some mondo rainstorms we've been having, collapsed.
That was the track the North Star rail (mine) runs on. So, when Amanda went to work yesterday via car, she got stuck in the worst traffic jam she'd ever seen, and this is with the State Workers off the highway. And it has been discussed in the news. Apparently, enough people were using the North Star Light Rail Line to matter! Yay public transit! I just hope they fix that bridge soon.
And, I am thankful that it did not collapse under the commuter train.....
They may need a crane to fix that bridge. Oh, and speaking of cranes, Why Not Allow Crane Hunting? Indeed.
OK, next item: I have this question for you: What's the diffrence between "what you said was racist" and "what you said could have been interepated as possilby sounding racist to someone who doesn't know you in all due respect." In my experience either one gets you "I'M NOT RACIST YOU A-HOE!!!11!!" And they are structurally the same thing. They are not "You are a racist swine, a-hole!!!11!!"
Jason Thibeault has been slogging it out with some commenters elsewhere on this very blog about the meaning of "Ad hominem" and was thus inspired to write a blog post about this in which he provides this video which I hereby rob:
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...