Update on my ex-husband
Yesterday my ex-husband did indeed manage to get out of the rehab hospital and come home, against their recommendations. Without going into details, I’ll just say it was a very stressful day.
I don’t know how it will ultimately go. But at the moment our son is visiting for a few days and helping out. He lives far away, so his presence here is a big treat. His visit doesn’t represent what the day-to-day reality will be, but it’s still great and we’re trying to get as much done as possible while he’s here. For example, that includes getting rid of at least part of a formidable accumulation of junk.
One pleasant surprise is that my ex-husband is eligible for some pretty good temporary benefits in terms of visiting nurses and visiting physical therapists, courtesy of Medicare. They came today – the day after his release – to do an evaluation, which I consider pretty speedy. They were extremely nice, too – we were all laughing and joking quite a bit.
So that’s today.
AOL dialup is ending
Are you kidding me? Dialup? It was still around?
AOL dialup is sort of like the coelacanth, but its days are numbered:
AOL, the company previously known formally as America Online, is discontinuing its Dial-up internet service after 34 years.
The service will shutter on September 30, meaning “the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued,” the web service provider said on its website.
I know people who still have AOL email, which won’t be affected.
I bet most of you remember the tonal sound of dialup, and the wait. I certainly do, although I never used AOL. Hey, I remember search engines before Google.
I first got online around 1995, mostly to get information about my arm injury. I never thought I’d use the internet that much, and just look what happened. Hooked.
Minnesota fraud case: the perps are not diverse
The number of defendants charged in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud has now reached 73. Fifty have been convicted. Almost every defendant is a first- or second-generation Somali immigrant. In a case that has yet to be charged, Somalis figure prominently in a Minnesota Medicaid fraud that bears some of the hallmarks of the Feeding Our Future case, but nothing will ever top that one.
Somali Minnesotans are also featured in Minnesota’s apparent daycare fraud. In 2023 Deena Winter reported that about half of the defendants then charged in the Feeding Our Future case had been paid tens of millions more in state money for services such as providing child care and assisting seniors and people with disabilities.
I suppose some would consider it racist to point out this lack of diversity, even though Somalis are not a race. Somalia is a country. It also happens to be overwhelmingly Muslim, which is also not a race. But it’s a third-world country, a failed country, and one that even Somalis realize is the world’s most corrupt. The link goes to an article in The Somali Digest, which doesn’t pull its punches on the subject:
Somalia’s last-place ranking in the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index is a stark reminder of the challenges it faces in overcoming institutional corruption. This position, worse than that of Venezuela, Syria, and South Sudan, points to a deeply ingrained issue that transcends simple acts of bribery or fraud. Instead, it indicates a systemic rot that affects every layer of governance and public service.
The ranking is about corruption in “governance and public service.” In Minnesota, the Somali fraudsters were taking advantage of government programs to get money, so I’d say it comes under the heading of supposed “public service.”
I would bet that most Somalis who come here don’t participate in that sort of fraud, but there’s little question that many do and have brought their culture of corruption here.
Open thread 8/13/2025
ABC reporter mugged by reality
The current Democrat line is that crime in DC is no biggee. But ABC news anchor Kyra Phillips begs to differ:
“We can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we’re all experiencing it firsthand, working and living down here,” the “ABC News Live” host continued, as she reported on President Trump’s decision to place the city’s police department under federal control and deploy National Guard troops into the streets.
As I wrote yesterday, the reduced crime statistics in DC are very likely to be an artifact of purposeful minimizing and re-definition of crimes in compiling those numbers. But that probably doesn’t fool most of DC’s residents, who not only have their own anecdotal experiences, but those of their friends and acquaintances. It would be more informative to have valid statistics, but in the absence of those people will go by their own perceptions.
On the Gaza tunnels
The Gazans are adept at three things: propaganda, killing, and digging elaborate and extensive tunnels. In fact, their tunnel system is almost certainly the most elaborate in the world. But in that, they are helped along by geography/geology.
Here’s an in-depth (pun intended, I guess) look at the tunnels and why they are so easy to build and difficult to eradicate:
The unique conditions of the Gaza Strip in this context are also well known: its soft sandstone allows for relatively easy subterranean digging, in contrast to the hard limestone terrain in Lebanon and the West Bank. As a result, the IDF’s operations in these areas have had a very different character.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s use of subterranean infrastructure was substantially more limited. … [M]ost of Hezbollah’s “strategic” subterranean systems were limited in location and scope, and were largely known to Israeli intelligence. As a result, when the offensive phase of the campaign against Hezbollah began in September 2024, the Israeli Air Force destroyed most of these systems within hours, days, and a few weeks. … Thus, in the Lebanese arena, a decisive victory was achieved relatively quickly, primarily through the combination of air power and intelligence, against an adversary widely regarded as stronger and more dangerous than Hamas.
Indeed, the prolonged campaign in the Gaza Strip, now approaching two years, stems decisively from the challenge of the underground domain. Beyond the issue of the hostages, which significantly restricts IDF operations, the vast underground space in the Gaza Strip enables Hamas to shelter, hide, and disappear. From there, small guerrilla units of the organization emerge from concealed shafts embedded within the built or ruined urban landscape, set up ambushes, launch RPG rockets, and deploy or attach explosive devices. Despite all the experience and skills the IDF has acquired on the subject, there is currently no simple, practical way to neutralize this mode of warfare. Moreover, not only the prolonged nature of the fighting in the Gaza Strip reflects the challenge but also the difficulty in achieving a decisive outcome and the massive scale of forces required—including both regular and reserve brigades and divisions. These stem directly from the limited ability to contend with the subterranean threat. Lacking an effective solution, the IDF is left with little choice but to flood the area with a large number of forces and advance slowly and methodically as the default course of action.
Thus, the long duration of the campaign in the Gaza Strip, the difficulty in achieving a decisive outcome, and the immense scale of forces involved all stem directly from the underground challenge. …
The Viet Cong were the first to use subterranean networks extensively against the United States, which struggled to find an effective response. However, the Viet Cong’s tunnel system was likely only half the length of Gaza’s and ran mainly through uninhabited jungle terrain and not dense urban areas. In this sense, Gaza’s network is unique in both scale and implications—not only compared to Lebanon and the West Bank, but also globally.
Much more at the link.
Since the post-10/7 war began, the nature and extent of the Gazan tunnel system has been discussed a great deal. But I think many people are nevertheless unaware of how exceptionally extensive it is, and how it continues to be used by Hamas as above-ground Gaza becomes rubble. It remains a huge problem in Gaza and an enormous factor in the duration and difficulty of this war, and the author believes that it would probably be a threat to any group that would take over postwar.
Britain’s growing “migrant” crisis
It’s interesting how there are harmonic resonances in much of the Western world for problems concerning illegal aliens (called “migrants” by the left) and those who ask for asylum and are not true asylum seekers. In the US – for now, with Trump as president – the situation has gotten better in terms of new arrivals, although those who are already here remain here for the most part. In Eastern Europe, many of the leaders have taken a hard line. But in most of Western Europe the opposite is true.
In Britain, Keir Starmer can thank the fact that the Tories were no better on this than the left has been; that failure of the right is what was mainly responsible for his own election as Prime Minister. It’s a poor solution to the problem – in fact, it’s no solution at all – but it’s understandable that frustrated voters didn’t want to reward the right for doing nothing constructive. However, as could easily have been predicted, rewarding the left turns out to have been a very bad idea.
Brendan O’Neill of Spiked explains in the following video what’s been happening lately. The entire video is of interest, but I’ve cued up a small section of about two minutes that deals with just this issue:
Here’s an article describing those recent protest demonstrations in Britain over this issue. Although it’s from the leftist BBC, its content is more fair than one might expect. An excerpt:
Lorraine Cavanagh, who works for charities on the Isle of Dogs, echoes the concerns in Epping. “I don’t know who they are.
“They are unidentified men who can walk around and do what they want to do with no consequences,” she says.
That comment, “I don’t know who they are”, lies at the heart of the opposition to asylum seekers in these communities.
It can be very hard to establish basic facts about the young men in the hotels, the system that put them there, or the impact they might have on locals. …
We know how many hotel places are being used in each region – the vast majority are in the south of England. They cost £5.77m a day for the government to provide. The estimated cost over the decade to 2029 has spiralled from £4.5bn in 2019 to £15.3bn.
But there are no specific figures for the age and sex of hotel occupants, no details about their countries of origin, or their claim for sanctuary in the UK.
I have little doubt that these statistics could be compiled – at least, based on what the “migrants” say – and I assume it’s no accident that such figures are not available.
Open thread 8/12/2025
Yes, you can – but why would you want to?
Update on my ex-husband
He’s definitely made some progress, but they’re sending him home tomorrow and I don’t feel that he’s ready. It’s a long long story, too long and involved to tell here (and I don’t want to violate his privacy). But suffice to say there are no simple solutions, and I’m mega-stressed.
I’ll update as things develop. Hopefully, he’ll do better than I fear. That would be by far the best outcome.
Trump sends Guard to DC to control crime
This was expected (I had written a previous post on the prospect). Today, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in DC and issued some EOs:
Pursuant to my authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States and the District of Columbia, I direct the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital. The mobilization and duration of duty shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia. Further, I direct the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with State Governors and authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.
There also will be an effort to remove homeless camps, some of which are in traffic circles which are federal park property.
Of course, Democrats don’t like this, and they are saying that crime in DC isn’t bad and is in fact down. However:
In a report published in July, it was revealed that a D.C. police commander was recently suspended for falsifying data to improve the city’s crime statistics. …
According to sources, the conspiracy is widespread and essentially an unstated policy. The D.C. police union, which has been working to expose all this, says that multiple supervisors have been reclassifying crimes so that they don’t show up in the reports.
What a mess.
Sympathy for the terrorists: as the UK, France, and Canada go, so goes Australia …
… and probably New Zealand, in preparing to recognize Palestine as a reward for its rape, murder, and torture of Jews; the sacrifice of Gazans to that cause; and the mendacious production of anti-Israel propaganda in order to play the victim card:
“Australia will recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own. We will work with the international community to make this right a reality,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra.
Albanese claimed that a two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict is “humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” AFP reported.
The two-state solution or a magic wand, whichever comes first. Albanese is a fool and a knave, but he’s got a lot of company. Most of the English-speaking world seems determined to go down that path, except Trump. It occurs to me, however, that if Kamala Harris had been elected, the US probably would be following in their footsteps right about now.
And the hostages? What of them? It would be obvious to a second-grader that these promises to recognize a state would end any pressure on Gaza to release them in a deal. Why agree to a deal and give up the precious hostages, when the West is already promising to reward the Palestinians?
This concession by Australia represents a change:
The decision “undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence,” added the [Israeli ambassador to Australia], noting that Albanese’s government previously set strict conditions for it to recognize a Palestinian state, including “renouncing violence, freeing hostages and establishing credible, accountable governance.
“However, the Australian government has abandoned those conditions and proceeded with recognition for symbolic reasons rather than genuine progress toward peace,” Maimon wrote in an X post.
I think the word “symbolic” there is accurate. After all, what does this “recognition” mean in practical terms? I’m not sure, but it is morally repugnant and quite obviously rewards some of the worst terrorists and Jew-haters the world has ever known. Yes, these nations getting ready to do the recognition also say that Hamas has got to go, but in the meantime they are helping them and causing a prolongation of the war – without a single suggestion or even thought of how it is that Hamas will indeed go, or any proof whatsoever that the PA would be any better.