Usually the connection here is pretty strong and pretty reliable, but every now and then – well, you know. We’re not having storms today, either. No, this is what we’re having:

And I’ll throw in this:

Hey, why not some Ann Miller?

ADDENDUM: At least I don’t live in a town or country where they tell me I can’t use my AC.

The post Connectivity problems seem to have resolved – but it’s too darn hot appeared first on The New Neo.

Unbelievable that it’s been seventeen years since commenter FredHJr died suddenly and tragically. As time passes, the number of readers here who don’t remember Fred must necessarily increase, so for those of you who don’t know who FredHJr was, please see this and this, as well as these.

Fred’s death was extremely tragic for his family. But it was tragic for this blog, too, because he was an invaluable and irreplaceable member of our community, a “changer” who knew a lot about the Left, and a keen observer of politics, history, religion, culture—of life itself. I still think about him at times, wondering what he’d have to say about everything that’s happened in these last seventeen years.

Nearly every year around the anniversary, I offer some excerpts from his many comments here.

This comment is from October 18, 2008, just a few weeks before Obama was elected president for the first time:

It’s the Marxist/Leninist ethics of expediency. No regrets. Whatever it takes to discredit anything the other side does and excuse the sins of your own side.

…this reveals a lot about who is about to take power and how they will wield it against the rest of us. They get away with it and many will not at all be troubled by it because they are shaped by the post-modernism, cultural Marxism that they imbibed during their formative and educational experience. If we as a people cannot name this accurately and expunge its corrosive influence over our lives, then down into the wages of perdition and disaster we go.

The comment is from October 28, 2008. The election was getting close:

Obama is part of a nexus of interests. What the American dopes who will put him in office are getting is a NETWORK of alliances and interests, running the gamut from Finance (Soros) to academia to media to law. Thus far, in order to appeal to the Middle Muddle he has been packaged as a moderate or centrist. But once in office the venomous swarm of this network will burst out of the nest and devour the host. You wait and see. And I’m not eager for the moment to say “I told you so.” I really would it be the case that it never happens at all.

This was a comment of Fred’s from the very beginning of the Obama presidency, but I think it’s worth mulling over today:

For me, Western Civilization is an incredibly complex work that has eclectically and also seamlessly borrowed the excellence and the virtues of Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, and the Enlightenment. The High Middle Ages and the Renaissance also made important contributions. In its totality it is a meritocracy and a liberation of humanity that has resulted in ever greater learning and material prosperity and health for most of the people who live under it. It is not an unblemished history. Yet in its totality it gleams with advancement when juxtaposed against civilizations which enslave humanity.

I think the beginning of the end of our civilization began with the French Revolution and The Terror. It was the beginning of the elaboration of totalitarian thought and throughout the 19th century this kept on finding newer permutations of elegant, intellectual terror. The 20th century was the culmination of the barbarity of totalitarianism.

These are chosen somewhat randomly, but so very much of what I looked at that Fred had written was on target.

Over the years there have been other commenters here who probably have died, and I would like to mention them too, but for only one other commenter did I actually get official word of that person’s death: that was Mike K, who died in December of 2024. I announced Mike K’s death in this post, with some information about his life, accomplishments, and comments. It’s hard to be specific about other people, but one commenter who comes to mind is “strcpy,” who announced that he was very ill and then disappeared shortly thereafter, about sixteen years ago. I wrote him an email but never heard back, and I fear he’s gone. But I don’t know for sure. Another prolific commenter who disappeared many years ago was Occam’s Beard. I was never able to contact him after that, and so I fear something tragic may have happened. Same for parker.

There are almost certainly others, as well. I wouldn’t necessarily find out. Sometimes people just stop commenting here because they get busy or they get tired or they get turned off. But it stands to reason some of them will have died. So I’ll take this opportunity to say RIP for all of them.

Here’s a happy addendum, for those of you who are wondering if commenter Rufus T. Firefly is all right: he is! I heard from him recently. He’s just been very very busy with work. He does still read here but doesn’t have time to comment.

The post Last Friday was the 17th anniversary of commenter FredHJr’s death appeared first on The New Neo.

But at the moment my leading candidate for the new comment process should be very easy for regular commenters here. Just fill in the information you’ve been using right along: username and email address, even if the email address is fake; as long as it’s the email address you’ve been using to comment here right along, there shouldn’t be any difficulty. Apparently I can grandfather all the previous commenters in and there won’t be a problem. Your very first comment under the new system will be held in moderation until it’s approved. That could take a few hours, but after that first comment you can comment as before and don’t have to register or go through the process again.

I will make an announcement prior to instituting the new policy and I’ll explain once more.

The post Note on comments appeared first on The New Neo.

This is one of the few blogs of any decent size that still has unrestricted comments. In other words, most blogs either have registration or something like disqus. From the start, I’ve always valued comments and I’ve wanted to keep the process very easy here, and I’ve done so. But there’s a price to pay when it’s too easy.

So I think that some time in the next few days I’ll institute a new system. There are many from which to choose, so I’m not sure which one I’ll use yet because I’m not sure which will offer the best balance of protection versus ease of use.

I’m sorry to do this, but my intent is not to burden you with anything onerous. It will probably require an initial registration with an email address, and I’ll probably exclude hotmail accounts although I think I may be able to grandfather some hotmail accounts in for regular commenters here who have used that kind of account in the past. On your first registration, your first comment would be held in moderation till I approve it. But after that first time you wouldn’t have to go through registration again and you’ll just be able to comment as before and your comments will appear as before.

Any opinions or suggestions on this are welcome.

[ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention that I will not use disqus. I find it very annoying, and there are actually plenty of trolls on disqus.]

[ADDENDUM II:

Here’s a further explanation on how this would actually work. It changes very little, actually. You use the exact same information as before. Nothing is different except that I have to approve your very first comment. After that, you comment just as before.

It does not require that I send an email to your email address, for example. The email address merely has to be consistent with the same one you’ve always used here. Only I know what that address is (and I already know it), and of course you know it. No one else has access to it. It doesn’t have to be functional.

For new commenters, I might end up requiring a functioning email address. I will do that if I find there are a lot of trolls. But for old established commenters, it just needs to be the email address that person has always used plus the name that person has always used.]

The post I’m contemplating some changes for the comments here appeared first on The New Neo.

I’ve also been working on the “too many requests” problem, as well as other issues that have plagued the blog for while. Basic cleanup. I’ve changed certain things and it seems to have helped, but time will tell. Let me know if you’ve been having problems.

The post Update on tech stuff here appeared first on The New Neo.

And so although I don’t think I’m all the way back to square one, the problem seems to be persisting at least somewhat. One tip – if you happen to get the error message – is to wait about a half-hour and it should clear up. It also doesn’t seem to happen to everyone all at once, because when I’m getting the error message, I can see by my site traffic meter that some people are still getting through.

Hope they’re not bots.

Now my host has escalated things and supposedly the higher-ups are working on fixing the glitch. We’ll see. I hope they don’t tell me to just get a much more expensive hosting service.

I’ll keep you posted.

The post Update on the “too many requests” error message appeared first on The New Neo.

Usually the “too many requests” message only lasts at most about a half-hour or forty-five minutes, but I don’t want it to happen at all. So I ask you to please bear with me and be patient for at least a few more days while I try a bunch of other possible fixes.

This is not my forte, but I can always upgrade if it doesn’t work. Nothing I do at this point should disrupt service … hopefully.

The post Blog tech talk appeared first on The New Neo.

13-inch MacBook Neo Apple A18 Pro chip with 6 core CPU and 5 core GPU – 8GB Memory – 256GB SSD – Indigo

Customers commend the 13-inch MacBook Neo for its portability and overall performance, noting its seamless integration with iPhones. The impressive battery life is also a highlight for users. Additionally, customers appreciate the available color options, allowing them to coordinate with other devices.

The post Let me just say that … appeared first on The New Neo.

So you can rest easy about that.

The post A note for those asking after commenter Rufus T. Firefly appeared first on The New Neo.

As for Megyn, she’s in a feud with Mark Levin in which she said he has a micropenis. I am not making that up; that’s the level at whcih she’s operating these days. Well you might ask, how would you know, Megyn?

Micropenis Mark @marklevinshow thinks he has the monopoly on lewd. He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. Bc of his micropenis. https://t.co/7cl3Efc3N7

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 15, 2026

But rather than get any deeper into the weedy details, I’ll just say that I think part of what’s happening is this (a quote from a response to Megyn on X):

Often happens to those who experience a very long and successful run. Something snaps and their ego’s invincibility trait goes haywire.

In other words, in the fight for clicks and without anyone setting external limits on them anymore, they get very full of themselves. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. For Carlson and Kelly, their previous employer Fox News used to act as the falconer and was a check on their wilder tendencies. Released from those constraints and wildly successful on their own terms, things fall apart, and those things are Carlson and Kelly. They’re not the only ones, either.

Over twenty(!) years ago I wrote about a similar phenomenon in connection with bloggers but also pundits in general:

But I think they (we) do need to be careful not to get carried away with the sheer brilliance of their (our) rapier wit and trenchant opinions.

Alone in front of the computer (or, increasingly less often, a pad of paper), the pundit/blogger sits. Inspiration strikes, and the need to be wittier, sharper (there’s that word again!), more opinionated–to be noticed–rises up in folks who tend to be pretty witty and sharp to begin with. “The pen is mightier than the sword” is a cliche because it has some truth to it–and the sharper the words the mightier they sometimes sound, especially in the solitude of the act of composition. And once put down and published, they can’t be recalled.

Then there’s the group aspect. Bloggers and pundits write in isolation, but they’re not really in isolation at all, except physically. Mentally and emotionally they are part of one huge mass shouting out at each other and at everybody else, the sounds of the exchange echoing and ricocheting and reverberating all over the country–and in some cases the world. As such, we influence each other greatly. It’s not even a case of following the herd, it’s more a case of being influenced by the opinions of others, a process we are all susceptible to no matter how independent we may think we are. We influence each other directly by our words, and also indirectly by the sense of competition that’s inherent in this pundit/blogger game–the need, for some at least, to try to outdo each other.

So what’s the result? Sometimes it’s wonderful–in fact, since I’m a fan of blogs, I’d say it’s often wonderful–a liveliness of writing and thinking and interacting that you just can’t get in the staid old MSM. There’s an energy here, and part of it is the energy that comes with a bunch of sharp (in several senses of the word) and verbal people mixing it up and trying to say intelligent things in a way that’s interesting to read. Sometimes it segues into a group of people trying to say outrageous things, either to amuse or to stir up or out of anger or the desire to call attention to themselves, or some of the above or all of the above.

When is the line crossed and it becomes a feeding frenzy? I don’t have the answer; each person has to decide that for him/herself. But when there’s a lot of blood in the water and people find that their own entrails, and those of their allies, are hanging out–that could be a sign.

The only thing that’s changed is that the ascendance of social media has made it worse.

ADDENDUM:

The post Pundits unbound appeared first on The New Neo.