Port Authority Commissioner Versus Cops

Want to know why people hate politicians?  This is why people hate politicians:

Bad Lip Reading - Zuckerberg

These guys totally knock this one out of the park:

Saturday Song Share: Bob Mould and Dave Grohl - Hardly Getting Over It

A Husker Du classic, but with Dave.  What's not to like?

Rise of the Theyby

In the latest in the fight to 1) eradicate all masculinity and 2) create a world where gender is simply a choice, some parents are choosing to raise their babies as genderless humans.

Theybies.

The child has no gender-specific name, pronoun, clothes, etc.  It really is an it, allowing it to become whatever it will become.

You can check out the full article here.

Here's a quote from an enlightened parent raising a theyby of their own (emphasis mine):

“Our baby is going to be whatever they want to be,” he says. “And then we’re going to send somebody out into the world who is in turn not going to project their own opinions or stereotypes onto who someone else should be. I’m happy for our kid to be the vehicle in which our parents and friends get up to speed with what’s going on. Change has to happen, and we’re doing it.”

Change has to happen, and if my baby is subject to untold trauma to get it done, so be it.

We live in a completely depraved and sick world, and we deserve everything that is coming to us.

Yankee Woes

After giving up 22 runs over the past two nights, the Twins ineptitude against the Yankees appears to be well intact here in the 2018 season.  Our inability to do anything with the Bronx Bombers is well established, but the last two games have yielded a special level of ugly.

It's not just the pitching, either.  The bats have gone cold as we've put up a whopping 4 runs against the Yanks' 22.  

The Twins are clearly in a swoon; we've dropped five straight and have gone from first place in the division to two games below .500.  Certainly, there's a lot of baseball left to be played, and that's the good news.

The bad news?  We face the Yankees again today.

Saturday Song Share: Jack Penate - Pull My Heart Away

A nice newer tune:

Why the Wild Have No Chance

Down 3-1, the Wild have their backs to the wall; facing Winnipeg on the road in two out of the next three games if they could possibly stay alive.  But stay alive they won't.  

Why?  Lots of reasons.  They lost Suter before the playoffs started.  They lost Parise at the end of game 3.  They've been drastically outplayed in three out of the four playoff games thus far.

But here's the real reason why they're done:



That was the Wild's best player and the only source of consistent offense taking a brutal cross check to the head.  But they'll lose not because of what happened.  Rather, they'll lose because of what didn't happen.

At no time in the rest of the game was there any payback for this brutal hit to their best player.  Nothing.  And when a team doesn't have each other's backs, especially in hockey, they're done.

Get your golf clubs ready, boys, because your gutless rear ends are going to be off the ice by the end of the night.

Cowardly, gutless, selfish losers.

SW1380 Audio

Southwest flight 1380 had an engine explode and a passenger killed by debris.  Despite this, the plane laned without further catastrophy.  Part of the reason was the professionalism of the team working on the situation.

Here's the audio of what that sounded like:



What remarkable composure by all involved.

Britain in Free Fall

Yesterday the Daily Mail reported that there is a machete crime committed in Britain every 90 minutes.  

Machete crime.  Seriously.

Also recently reported is that London has passed up New York on number of homicides, despite England's ban on guns.  Indeed, most of the deaths have been caused by knives.

You know why people aren't killed with machetes or knives on our streets?  Because you never know who might be packing, and it is suicide to bring a knife to a gun fight.

Still, Londoners click their tongues at us in chat rooms for our gun violence while those that they've invited to their country continue to hack at their necks and spill their blood onto the streets.

You reap what you sow.  

Twins Restart in Puerto Rico

After having their last three games snowed out - not rained out, snowed out - the Twins have flown off to Puerto Rico where they'll act as the home team for a two-game series with the Cleveland Indians.  

It's a good time for us to think about our blessings.  Yes, we've had to endure a horrible winter.  However, our infrastructure is still intact and deaths due to the weather have been few.  The same can't be said for the beautiful island, and there is still a lot of locations that are without power.

Hopefully, the games can serve as a nice distraction for everyone.  

The Longest Winter

Here in northern Minnesota winter started in the first week of November.  Our lakes froze, our duck season ended, and we hunkered down for what we expected would be a long winter.

We had no idea.

First, we had winter without any reprieve.  In a usual winter, we'd get a number of days in the 40's to allow things to thaw and allow people to come out of their hibernation.  We had nothing like that.  In fact, we had the opposite, with stretches of days that ran well below zero.  It was so bad, that positive temperature figures, even single digits, felt good.

Second, we're here in the second week of April and are still mired in a full-scale winter.  To our south, the Twin Cities are unburying from nearly a foot of snow.  It's horrific.

Let's do the math on that span: That's nearly five and a half straight months of winter.  We're not talking fall or spring days - we'll talking 100% straight winter stuff.  Even staunch Minnesotans have had enough of this.  We're ready for spring.

It looks like we may get our wish as temps at the end of the week will be into the 50's, and all of that snow will quickly melt.  Hopefully, we've turned the corner and we can put a cap on the longest winter I can ever remember.

Dysfunction Junction

Yesterday was an odd day.  I had not one but two encounters with customers in which they felt slighted, and their remedy for the slight was to behave in a wildly inappropriate fashion.  Then, later that evening, I had a fellow board member on a board in which I sit go completely off for reasons that might seem reasonable for an adolescent mean-girl.  

I've not seen anything like it.

Perhaps I've been really lucky and just have not had to deal with a ton of dysfunction in my life.  Actually, I know I've been lucky.  Those with whom I've been close have done a good job of keeping the drama in check.  Likewise, I've been fortunate that chemical abuse has been limited as well.

Thus, when one event occurred yesterday it was odd.  Two?  Really weird.  Then throw in the inappropriate behavior of last night and I don't even know what to say.  Upon reflection, I think things get summed up as follows:

• There are a lot of people out there that have honed their interpersonal skills in social media, and that should scare the living hell out of all of us
• We don't know what kind of medial and/or addiction issues some folks might be suffering

When encountering these behaviors, we're best served not to get caught up in the drama and emotion.  These people don't deserve our anger or even our engagement.  They may deserve our pity and our prayers, however.

The Spoon Lady

This is pretty damned incredible:

Shame on 60 Minutes

Last night 60 Minutes treated us to a 20-minute segment on the lynching of blacks.  Their reporting included extremely grizzly photography, stomach-turning news stories, and a firm blame that because of lynchings over 100 years ago in our history, black people are still being discriminated against in a grotesque manner to this day.

To what end, 60 Minutes?  Sure seems like your goal is to fan racial hate.  I'm not sure there was any other objective.

Perhaps it can be couched as making us face our history, like keeping the concentration camps open in Germany?  Sure.  This was an ugly part of our history, and we need to own it.  However, to make the leap to blame lynching on the current incarceration statistics while failing to ignore the facts that blacks from single-parent families commit crimes in wildly higher numbers than any other group, and that single-parent families are rampant in the black community ignores data. 

Our disgusting history of lynchings isn't responsible for the sorry state of race relations in this country.  The replacement of the nuclear family, starting with Johnson's great society and continuing unabated ever since has everything to do with it. 

But 60 Minutes isn't concerned about race relations, or the truth, or facts.  As long as we can blame each other for our ills, and as long as that continues to manifest itself in hate, well folks that there is some good TV.

Saturday Song Share: James McMurtry - Choctaw Bingo

I don't know how he keeps the lyrics straight.  

Great songwriting:

No "Dilly Dilly" at the Masters

It's being reported that a list of phrases has been submitted to Masters security, and patrons shouting those phrases would be ushered off the premises.  

Some definitely need to go.  "Baba booey" and "Get in the hole" have definitely run their course.  But "Dilly Dilly?"  That's just no fun.

Speaking of fun, here's what Bud Light did to celebrate Loyola's improbable run to the final four:

Someone on their marketing team deserves a huge bonus.

We Don't Call it "Minny"

Want to know if someone is not from Minnesota?  If they use the word "Minny" to describe our state, they're definitely NOT from Minnesota.

We don't use that word.  Many of us hate that word.  However, the rest of the country (espcially NHL announcers) throw it around like it's said all the time.

It's not.  Because it sucks.

I'm from Minnesota.  Calling it Minny, especially in one of our local establishments, might result in a "correction."

The Best Solution for Stopping Telemarketing Callls

I'm not sure about you, but I'm seeing a huge increase in the amount of telemarketing calls that I'm getting on my iPhone.  Upon recieving an offending call, I'll always note the number and establish them as a blocked number on my phone, but despite doing this well over 100 times, the calls still keep coming.

What's a guy to do?  How about getting even?

There's a cool service out there called Jolly Roger that uses a voice robot technology to waste telemarkers' time and drive them crazy.

How it works is that when you get a call from a telemarketer, you use a really cool technique to hand them off to a Jolly Roger robot.  From there, the conversation begins.

Here's an example:

Suter's Loss

When one considers the most important players on the Wild this past season, the list would look something like this:

1) Eric Staal - His 40 goals have been critical and were some nights the only goals the Wild scored

2) Devan Dubnyk - The goalie is coming into his own, landing his 5th shutout last night

3) Ryan Suter 

Suter was second in the league in time on the ice.  While his offensive stats aren't going to find any leaderboard, his play was critical.  Not only at even strength; Suter was critical for both power play and penalty kill teams.  

Prior to his leg break, Suter was playing some of the best hockey of his career.  His positioning was virtuoso, his passes tape to tape, and his leadership unquestioned.  

The Wild had their first test last night with Suter gone and passed with flying colors.  All three defensive lines played extremely well, and as a result, Dubnyk was rewarded with a shutout.

The Wild will need a similar effort, all playoffs long if they have any hope of going anywhere.  The loss of Suter is a big, big hole to fill.

Technology's Impacts on Our Brains

I just engaged in a recent article which relayed some shocking information on the impact our mobile engagements are having with us physiologically; most importantly, with our brains:

New studies are showing how we relate to apps, smartphones are keeping us in a constant state of stress that can have some serious consequences on our social lives, anxiety levels, mental health and general well-being. In teens, there are far greater risk factors.


The problem is here then the use of technology at the intersection of our brain. One way to put the problem is, mobile devices and apps are easily adjustable. Our Brains are not. Currently, the monetization of Tech is putting profits ahead of our well-being.

As we're continuing to learn, Facebook, Google, and others are gaming us.  As our dependency on them increases, so will their algorithms.

We don't know the long-term effects of this, but, unfortunately for all of us, we're going to find out.   

Jesus Wins. We Win.

Mark Chapter 16

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. 

“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. 

See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Happy Easter!