Shot in the Dark

Speaking Of Shots In The Dark: Welcome To the New Design!

  • New Wrinkle

    When last we met Rashad Turner, he was the firebrand leader of the Saint Paul chapter of BLM. What a difference a couple years can make: It would seem Turner started having misgivings about BLM for some of the same reasons I did – the organization joined with the Teachers union to piddle on the…

  • Because I’m A Gentleman…

    …I would not dream of responding to a tweet like this…: …with something snarky like “So the good news is, I’d avoid a carnal quagmire with the Bride of Chucky. The bad news is I’d lose enough advertising space on that forehead for one of those yuuuuuge LED billboards.” Fortunately, I am too much of…

  • Newbies

    Have we reached a tipping point in the culture war as re guns? It’s not a new point – if you’ve listened to my show, you’ve heard the story. But this past year, 40% of gun sales were to people outside the “white male who’s already got a bunch of guns” stereotype: Not only were…

  • Holding Out

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Congress was aware in 1963 that foreign powers had the long-term goal of destroying America.  HA!  They haven’t gotten Number 35, yet.   Joe Doakes I might argue with Joe on that point. They’re off to a great start.

  • The Kaiser’s Battle: Part Two

    Despite the potential dangers of touring a front-line trench, Winston Churchill had more reasons to be grateful for his early-morning assignment.  Gallipoli had tarnished his once promising political career, forcing the one-time First Lord of the Admiralty and key war-time cabinet member to a parliamentary backbencher with little voice in the conduct of the war. …

  • I’m Old Enough…

    …to remember when there was no how, no way, the Coronavirus was a Chinese biowarfare experiment, and it was racist to suggest as much. I guess they’re right – elections have consequences. UPDATE: Remember – it was only pro-Trump fake news propaganda outlets.

  • You Were Warned. Fat Lotta Good It Did.

    Politicized “Science” in Public Health is to “Science” as Scientology is to “Science”. . Case in point: Vaping was a godsend for millions of smokers who wanted to quit smoking tobacco, but couldn’t. Big Left, riding a wave of prohibitionism driven by (pick one) (or two, or all of them, I don’t know, it may…

  • “Investment”

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Does obtaining a Master’s Degree in Teaching make you a better teacher, or does it make you a better credentialed public employee union member now entitled to change salary lanes?  Is a $2,500 tax credit good public policy?  Joe Doakes Rhetorical question, right?

  • Memorial Day

    The image I’ve posted is an American cemetery in France, near Verdun. These graves are for soldiers killed in World War I. There are nearly 15,000 graves at the site. Over 53,000 Americans died in combat in World War I and 116,000 Americans in total died as a result of the war. My grandfather fought…

  • The Case Against Indulging Four Decade Old Curiosities

    We didn’t have access to a lot of contemporary popular music in the home I grew up in . It’s not that my parents discouraged it, but they discouraged it; I’m pretty sure my Mom wanted me to be a classical musician. That started to change, a bit, in sixth or seventh grade. I got…

  • Curiouser

    Another friend of the blog emails: Funny, why would this article mention “ghost guns”? It relates to the San Jose shooter – who showed ample sign of being completely, although not legally provably, insane. And no sign of having used a “ghost gun”.

  • City + Other People’s Money + Urban Progressive Privilege = Fun For Progs!

    A friend of the blog emails: I’m not going to weigh in on whether the Interstate system was bad for some neighborhoods when it happened.  But, every urban renewal project since then (like St Paul’s Green Line) seems to have been worse in terms of the impact on these neighborhoods. The goal in these current…

  • Novel Concept

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:\ I missed this earlier.  Sarah Johnson has proposed a ‘race offender registry.”  The idea is that people who are racists (actual, accused or suspected) should be prohibited from living near racial minorities.  It’s based on the sex offender registry concept.  Her idea is back in the news because Ms. Johnson…

  • Bagman’s Groove

    Value propositions: The Ukrainian energy company that was paying President Biden’s son Hunter $1 million a year cut his monthly compensation in half two months after his father ceased to be vice president. From May 2014, Burisma Holdings Ltd. was paying Hunter $83,333 a month to sit on its board, invoices on his abandoned laptop…

  • The Kaiser’s Battle: Part One

    Sorry for the long delay in continuing/finishing our World War I series – professional & personal duties stood in the way.  But we’re back and going to continue the series to see through to the end of the Great War… The sun had yet to rise when the first artillery shells fell at 4:40am on…

  • Flashbacks

    Minineapolis has been through crime waves before. The thirties, the late sixties/early seventies, and of course the “Murderapolis” years almost thirty years back. Not sure if this sort of thing happened at any of those times: Sounds like Beirut in 1984.

  • Term Life

    1985: “Progressive” “In” Crowd (academics, media, non-profiteers, etc): “It is good to be politically correct”. (Months of mockery, from conservatives and just plain real people ensue). 1986: “Progressive” “In” Crowd: “Political Correctness” doesn’t exist, and is just a term made up by right wingers to try to ‘satirize’ us”. 1994: “Progressive” In Crowd: “It’s time…

  • The Numbers, Unlike Keith Ellison, Don’t Lie

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: There have been a spate of shootings in Minneapolis. Liberals reflexively trot out the same tired solutions: close the gun show loophole and tax ammunition to make it more expensive and therefore harder to obtain. No guns, no bullets, no shootings. Simple, right? It occurs to me there’s a…

  • Quick Question

    Look over this news story, about “Palestinian” sympathizers attacking a Jewish familiy in Florida. What word is missing from anyplace in the story?

  • Unintended (?) Consequences

    A friend of the blog emails: So, if the cops think they got one of the shooters of those young kids in Mpls, they can’t pull him over if they have a taillight out? Just asking. Snark aside, I am trying to imagine the actual process of sorting calls between, at the most extreme case: The…

  • This Ain’t No Foolin’ Around

    The sound of gunfire, off in the distance/I’m getting used to it now. That wasn’t off in the distance. It was the scene at 38th and Chicago yesterday, also known as George Floyd Square. Sure, it was the middle of the day, but it’s always a good time to bust a few caps, right? This…

  • Pork-Barrel. Almost Literally

    The DFL put this out on social media over the weekend: “In partnership with the USDA?” Isn’t there some kind of rule against using taxpayer money (or things bought with taxpayer money) to directly benefit a political party? I mean, they put this event at their headquarters – down an obscure little side road along…

  • Inheritance Taxing

    There are few statements I personally find less convincing than “my ancestors suffered, so I have absolute authority on a completely different question“

  • Build It And They Will Come

    Almost 35 years ago, reacting to the Democrat bias in the media, Rush Limbaugh brought fearless, joyful paleoconservatism [1]. Spends thirty years dominating the ratings. Decades ago, reacting to “liberal” slant from the Big Three and CNN, Rupert Murdoch creates Fox News [2]. It dominates cable ratings for decades. 2021: reacting to a landscape of…

  • Infrastructure

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: This is the “infrastructure” that ordinary people think the Susan Rice Administration wants to spend money on: This is where the money actually would go: Joe Doakes The left, as Dennis Prager notes, destroys everything it touches. Including words.

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