September, 2021 archive
Routine Maintenance 0
I recently had all the water cutoffs in my residence replaced because none of them cut off the water any more. But hey! they were all over 30 years old, and stuff wears out. (I had the primary cutoff replaced about a year ago with a nice ball valve for the same reason.)
This applies to blogs and bloggers, also. I just removed “Margaret and Helen” from my blogroll because there’s not been a new post there for over six months (which, by the way, is a darned shame–it was fun to read).
Bloggers, maintain your blogrolls and remove defunct blogs. I can’t count how many times I’ve clicked on a link in a blogroll only to get a 404 or to find that the latest post was in aught-something or other.
Grumble, grumble, grumble.
Facebook Frolics 0
The Zuckerborg is a malevolent kludge that despoils society as it packs the purses of its proprietors.
Ask me nicely, and I’ll tell you what I really think.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Set a precedent of politeness for your progeny at an early age.
Maskless Marauders 0
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Bill Torpy is not sanguine. Here’s a bit from his article:
(snip)
Months ago, I thought civil discourse had bottomed out when self-deputized members of the Stop the Steal crowd stalked, yelled at and menaced election workers. But this new brand of madness is more loathsome and its perpetuators border on being domestic terrorists. They aren’t trying to undo an election. They’re playing with people’s lives.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
My professor for the history of the early federal period (roughly the early 1800s) when I was in graduate school (where my most significant learning was that I was not cut out to be an academician), Dr. Shade, was fond of saying that “history is irony.”
Here we have persons protesting the teaching of the existence of systemic racism–something not being taught–proving the existence of systemic racism.
There are none so blind as those who will not look.
Legacy 0
Michael in Norfolk points out that Barry Goldwater got one thing right.
Meta: Down at the Farm 0
A little while ago, I installed a plugin to make this site more mobile-friendly, and it crashed the site.
When I tried to load the site, everything loaded except the posts. If I clicked to go to behind the curtain to the admin area, a message popped up from WordPress telling me that the site had suffered a fatal error and directing me to the WordPress help files. It was “down at the farm” for about half an hour.
After 16 years, I would rather not lose this blog.
After puzzling for a few moments, I went to the backend of the website, which was accessible via my hosting provider, and opened phpMyAdmin and tried routine database maintenance (check, repair, optimize), to no avail.
In a flash of quite accidental what turned out to be brilliance, I opened the file manager in cpanel, navigated to the appropriate directory, and deleted the directory containing the files of said plugin.
And I’m back.
(Wiping sweat from brow) That was a close one!
And I’ll not try that plugin again, as it clearly is a malignant kludge, but I will thank it for giving me a chance to learn something.
The Culpable Criticize the Capable 0
I normally don’t pay much attention of Ross Douthat–he has a long history of rationalizing the irrational–but, as my old boss used to say, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.”
California Scheming 0
Several of my favorite news sites are run by major California newspapers, so I’ve seen many headlines regarding the attempted recall of California Governor Newsom, and I remember well Arnold Schwarzenegger’s* rise to the governor’s office a couple of decades ago.
I have never been a proponent of recalls and, frankly, am glad that my state does not embrace them. Also, I have long thought that there was something seriously broken about California’s recall procedure; in other states that have recall provisions, you do not see the recall frenzy that you see in Cali.
Now comes Michele Cottle to explain. A nugget:
Later in the article, she details what makes California’s recall procedure so vulnerable to abuse. It’s an object lesson in how to get it wrong.
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*My favorite Schwarzenegger quote is, “In Hollywood, there are two kinds of people, actors and stars. I am a star.”